Last Christmas Eve, the Obama administration inexplicably
removed the $400 billion cap on Freddie Mae and Freddie Mac allowing them to
continue to gamble with the people’s money with complete abandon. The CEO’s
were rewarded with bonuses of $6 million. Meanwhile real employment is
approaching 18-20% and foreclosures are at a staggering 200,000 a month. The
banks are making no effort to restructure mortgage loans because they receive
85% against foreclosure from private insurance companies.
In a further effort to prop up government-subsidized banks
and allow them to jettison their toxic assets, the Treasury Department has
granted massive tax exemptions amounting to billions of dollars. Coincidently,
Citigroup announced $20 billion repayment of its toxic assets.
There has been no effort to resurrect the Glass-Steagall Act
which separated high risk investment banking from consumer oriented commercial
banking. Bernanke lauded as ‘Man of the year’ by TIME, former Treasury Hank
Paulson and Geithner pillaged the Federal Reserve and converted it into a
national hedge fund using shrinking tax dollars to back toxic assets.
Contrary to Obama’s repeated promises to hold the ‘fat cats’
of Wall Street accountable, the ‘cats’ are very much in control many choosing
to ignore the White House summons for “very serious discussions” on December
13, 2009. Among the “no shows” were Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and
Citigroup.
Thus, its business as usual on Wall Street. Sadly, there is
not much hope of any meaningful changes that would ease the burden for ‘real
Americans.’
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