User:Sarah Manski

Hello, I'm working on projects on SourceWatch for the Real Economy Project.

You can reach me at smanski@posipair.com

Current work

 * Lehman Brothers
 * Goldman Sachs
 * Edward Yingling

Book'em Dano
Congress has created a new ten member Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. The commission has limited subpoena power and cannot actually put anyone in jail. The FBI has more than 580 large-scale corporate fraud investigations in at least 25 companies, including Lehman, AIG, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Wamu currently under way; at least 40 cases involve high risk subprime mortgage lending activities. And, FBI Director Robert Mueller told the U.S. Congress on September 16, 2009 that their caseload for mortgage fraud has continued to grow; now totaling more than 2,600 cases with most of them involving losses of over $1 million. But, the financial collapse that started in 2008 and brought down several giant financial institutions including Lehman Brothers, has only led to a handful of banksters going to jail. Compare this to what happened after S&L. Between 1990 and 1995 no less than 1,852 S&L officials were prosecuted and 1,072 placed behind bars. Another 2,558 bankers were also jailed, often for offenses which were S&L-linked. Currently there are very few financial wizards behind bars, some have paid fines, but compared to S&L very few people are being held to account.

Respected economist suggests that the behavior of many on Wall Street may have gone beyond mere recklessness to actual looting. Nobel laureate tells us that the looting of taxpayers is continuing with fatally flawed government programs like those designed to buy toxic assets. A few are even more blunt in their critique. William Black, the professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri who was deputy director of the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation --a federal regulator-- during the S&L crisis, argues that the current crisis was the result of massive, pervasive fraud, and a deregulatory culture that has nurtured criminal behavior by very highly paid bank executives. He outlines a compelling case for criminal prosecution.

Black tells : "This whole bank scandal makes Teapot Dome look like some kind of kids' doll set...we have a situation where Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner can speak of a $2 trillion hole in the banking system, at the same time all the major banks report they are well capitalized. And you have seen no regulatory action against what amounts to a $2 trillion accounting fraud. The reason we don't see it -- aren't told about it -- is that if they were honest, prompt corrective action would kick in, and then they would have to deal with the problem banks."

They’re listed below:

Bernie Madoff, former head of Wall Street firm Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC

Crimes: Madoff created the largest Ponzi scheme in US history leading to $50 billion in losses. Madoff was arrested by federal agents December 11, 2008. March 12, 2009 Madoff pled guilty to 11 counts of fraud, money laundering, perjury and theft. He was sentenced to the maximum of 150 years in jail.

Bradley Birkenfeld, former UBS banker 2001 to 2006

For helping thousands of US citizens avoid paying taxes, in August 2009, Birkenfeld received a sentence of three years and four months, coupled with a $30,000 fine and three years' probation from US District Judge William Zloch. The judge gave Birkenfeld less than the five year maximum sentence due to his cooperation with federal investigators. In addition, UBS, Switzerland’s largest bank, will pay a total of $780 million in fines, interest and restitution to avoid U.S. prosecution on charges it helped thousands of wealthy Americans evade taxes. As part of the settlement UBS agreed to disclose the names of thousands of individuals who held accounts with the bank. The Justice Department stated that it will defer prosecution of the company to see if UBS satisfies its obligations under the agreement. When Federal Reserve saved AIG from collapse with an $85 billion rescue loan and then three subsequent bailouts, several foreign banks including Paris-based Societe Generale and Frankfurt’s Deutsche Bank were given billions. UBS received about $3.3 billion.

"No one wants to say it, but essentially the Fed has been bailing out European banks." Said George Mason University economics professor Tyler Cowen

Robert Allen Stanford, chairman of the Stanford Financial Group of Companies

In early February 2009 the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Florida Office of Financial Regulation, and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, a major U.S. private-sector oversight body, were investigating Stanford's company Stanford Financial Group, and questioning the means by which Stanford International Bank manages consistently to make higher-than-market returns to its depositors. A former executive told SEC officials that Stanford presented hypothetical investment results as actual historical data in sales pitches to clients. The Securities and Exchange Commission charged Allen Stanford with "massive ongoing fraud" centered on an eight-billion-dollar investment scheme. Stanford's assets, along with those of his companies, were frozen and placed into receivership by a U.S. federal judge. Four federal tax liens were also placed against Stanford totaling more than $212 million.

In June 2009, Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) said that the Securities and Exchange Commission [SEC] was told to stand down by the Department of Justice in its investigation of billionaire financier Robert Allen Stanford’s global banking empire. Kucinich is the chairman of the Domestic Policy Subcommittee of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

“The SEC received numerous reports of the fraud being carried on by Stanford Group over the past decade and the least they could have done was disclose that information so investors could make an informed decision. Instead, the SEC became an accomplice to the fraud that has resulted in the loss of 28,000 investors’ retirement accounts, family trusts, pension plans and college savings.” - stated the Stanford Victims Coalition.

On June 25, 2009, Stanford appeared in a Houston court and pleaded "not guilty" to charges of fraud, conspiracy and obstruction.

"A lot of people who are responsible (for the crisis) seem to have gotten awfully rich in the process," said Barbara Roper, the director of investor protection for the Consumer Federation of America. Ralph Cioffi, former Bear Stearns investment fund founder and his fund manager, Matthew Tannin

On June 19, 2008, Cioffi and Tannin were charged with defrauding investors by claiming mortgage bonds were a safe investment, even though they described the market for subprime mortgages as "toast" in their own e-mails. Cioffi also faces charges of insider trading.

If no one is held to account for their crimes, what is the incentive to change their bad behavior?

Reasons why bankers are not being prosecuted:

1)Private investors have filed more suits against financial companies in the last two years than they did in the S&L days.

2)The sheer complexity of the financial deals in the recent crisis, and the fact that these deals were often deliberately and cleverly constructed to “arbitrage” the law (ie skirt, but not break it).

3)Few private law firms have the resources or desire to go head to head with numerous Wall Street banks at one time.

4)The Supreme Court has made it harder to bring and win securities cases in the last couple of years.

5)The FBI have been forced to divert staff in recent years to terrorist financing issues.

6)There is a lack of knowledge in Western courts about complex financial crimes.

Bad Banksters
Angelo Mozilo, co-founder of Countrywide Financial Corporation 1978 until July 1, 2008

David Sambol, former Countrywide Financial Corporation Chief Operating Officer and President

Eric Sieracki, former Countrywide Financial Corporation Chief Financial Officer

Mozilo's compensation during the United States housing bubble of 2001–06 has come under scrutiny. During that period, his total compensation (including salary, bonuses, options and restricted stock) approached $470 million.[Over many years, Mozilo sold hundreds of millions of dollars in stock personally[9], even while publicly touting the stock and using shareholder funds to buy back stock to support the share price.sold 140 million of his stock before the collapse. On June 4, 2009, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged former CEO Angelo Mozilo with insider trading and securities fraud[10][11]. On June 4, 2009, Mozilo, Sambol and Sieracki were charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission with securities fraud. They are accused of deliberately misleading investors while participating in insider trading. Mozilo knew Countrywide Financial Corporation was falling apart as early as August 2006, yet he profited by selling $140 million in personal stock holding without informing investors of Countrywide’s financial troubles. Mozilo and company were also accused of offering exotic mortgages to borrowers who had little ability to repay them, and steering consumers away from lower-cost loans to those that were more expensive. A company filing shows that 25 percent of subprime loans issued by Countrywide services are now delinquent, and 45 percent of the loans issued by Countrywide carried potentially financially devastating adjustable rates.

“This will be great for Countrywide, because at the end of the day, all of the irrational competitors will be gone.” said Mozilo of the spreading mortgage lending crisis.

“In terms of being unresponsive to what was happening, to sticking it out the longest, and continuing to justify the garbage they were selling, Countrywide was the worst lender,” said Ira Rheingold, executive director of the National Association of Consumer Advocates.

Joe Cassano, “Patient Zero” of the global economic crisis and founding member of AIG's financial-products unit.

Crime: Pusher of credit-default swaps (CDS) which circled the globe as financil weapons of mass destruction.

After receiving $85 billion in federal bailout money, in September 2008, 70 of AIGs top executives enjoyed a lavish, weeklong retreat at the Tuscan-inspired St. Regis Resort in Monarch Beach, Calif. The trip, which cost more than $400,000, featured banquets, golf outings and spa treatments. Before he was forced to retire in March 2008, Cassano received $315 million: $280 million in cash and an additional $34 million in bonuses. An initial $1 million-a-month consulting fee was later canceled.

“In fact, Cassano remained on the payroll and kept collecting his monthly million through the end of September 2008, even after taxpayers had been forced to hand AIG $85 billion to patch up his mistakes. When asked in October why the company still retained Cassano at his $1 million-a-month rate despite his role in the probable downfall of Western civilization, CEO Martin Sullivan told Congress with a straight face that AIG wanted to "retain the 20-year knowledge that Mr. Cassano had." (Cassano, who is apparently hiding out in his lavish town house near Harrods in London, could not be reached for comment.)” wrote Rolling Stone writer Matt Taibbi. Dick Fuld, Lehman Brothers CEO

Fuld is an American banker and executive best known as the final Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. Fuld had held this position since the firm's 1994 spinoff from American Express Company until 2008. Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11 on September 15, 2008, and subsequently announced a sale of major operations to parties including Barclays Bank and Nomura Securities.

Crimes: Packaging high risk subprime loans into bonds and passing on to investors billions of dollars of toxic debt.

From the years 1993 to 2007, he is reported to have received nearly half a billion dollars in total compensation. In 2007, Fuld was reported to have been paid a total of $22,030,534, which included a base salary of $750,000, a cash bonus of $4,250,000, and stock grants of $16,877,365. CNN named Fuld as one of the "Ten Most Wanted: Culprits of the Collapse" of the 2008 financial collapse in the United States; he was placed at number 9 on the list. On November 10, 2008 Fuld sold his Florida mansion to his wife Kathleen for $100; this may protect the house from potential legal actions against him. They had bought it only 4 years earlier for $13.56 Million. On March 17, 2009, New Jersey governor Jon Corzine commenced a lawsuit on behalf of the state of New Jersey against Fuld. In December 2008, Fuld was given the "Lex Overpaid CEO" and "thief" award of the Financial Times for having received $34m in 2007 and $40.5m in 2006, the last two years before his bank's failure. CNBC named Fuld at the top of its list of "Worst American CEOs of All Time", stating he is "belligerent and unrepentant".

In April 2009 Fuld took up a position with New York hedge fund Matrix Associates.

"You don't have a gun; that's good." Said Fuld to a Reuters reporter who had tracked him down to his country house.

"When I find a short-seller, I want to tear his heart out and eat it before his eyes while he's still alive," said Fuld.

"What, do people think I'm an idiot, that suddenly I woke up two months before and suddenly things were a problem? No. No, the signs were there,” said Fuld.

Stan O'Neal, Merrill Lynch CEO 2001 to Oct. 2007

Crimes: turning high risk subprime mortgage bonds into collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) and allowing Merrill to load up on the bonds to the tune of $41 billion in subprime CDOs and mortgage bonds by June 2006 Sandy Weill, founder of Citigroup financial services conglomerate

Crimes: Successfully lobbied to overturn the Glass-Steagall law limiting the investing risks banks could take. The federal government has given Citigroup $45 billion in aid

Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman Sachs CEO

Crimes: Lehman Brothers was allowed to fail to help Goldman Sachs. The New York-based bank received $10 billion as part of the government's $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Payment bailout program, which aided hundreds of banks. Goldman repaid the TARP money it received in June. Questions were raised about the government's decision to allow the collapse of Lehman Brothers, a Goldman Sachs competitor, and the decision to prop up American International Group Inc., After the $182.5 billion taxpayer bailout of AIG, Goldman got $12.9 billion from AIG in the form of collateral that Goldman already had in its possession and a cash settlement of ongoing margin disputes. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson was the former chief executive of Goldman Sachs who was aided at Treasury by a bevy of advisers with ties to the firm.

''Robert Rubin, U.S. Treasury Secretary under President Bill Clinton during both the first and second Clinton administrations. Before his government service, he spent 26 years at Goldman Sachs.''

Crimes: He pushed for the repeal of Glass-Steagall, the depression era law that separated commercial banks from investment banks so that bankers could not with depositor savings. After Citibank and Travelers Group merged making one of the largest banking insurance conglomerates in the world, Rubin went to work for citi and raked in over $17,000,000 in compensation from Citigroup and a further $33,000,000 in stock options as of 2008. Rubin also supported deregulation and internationalization of the derivatives market, and was a key player in pulling off the Uruguay Round which resulted in the creation of the WTO and binding deregulatory rules in at the WTO in the FS sector.

Scott Talbott Press Release
CMD's Golden Throne Award Presented to SCOTT TALBOTT, Top Lobbyist, Financial Services Roundtable

Today, the Real Economy Project of CMD is continuing our tradition of giving out a "Golden Throne Award" saluting the behind-the-scenes lobbyists and spinmeisters who have done their utmost to maintain the status quo and hold off any meaningful reform of the financial services sector, even after having a hand in the near collapse of the global economy.

The award invokes fond memories of the $1.2 million bathroom renovation ordered by Merrill Lynch's CEO, John Thain, shortly before the firm lost $27 billion and collapsed into the arms of Bank of America (BofA).

The Center for Media and Democracy is proud to announce that this fall's Golden Trhone is being presented to SCOTT TALBOTT the chief lobbyist for the Financial Services Roundtable. The Roundtable lobbies on behalf of the top 100 major banks, insurance, and securities services companies in the United States. Their membership includes the likes of Citigroup, JPMorganChase, Wells Fargo,Allstate Corporation, Fidelity Investments, General Electric Company, and more.

"Few have done more to earn this seat of honor. Scott Talbott has consistently been a true advocate for the American Bankster." said Mary Bottari from the Center for Media and Democracy.

Legislative priority number three is toothless derivatives regulation. Not even the people determining the value of derivatives knew what they were really valued at when the housing market collapsed. The Financial Services Roundtable doesn't have a problem with standardized derivatives being scutized, but amazingly the more exotic stuff should be hands off, "clearing sophisticated, customized derivatives should not be required because they allow flexibility for institutions to meet their customers’ needs." Congress should care about meeting the average American's needs, not wealthy banksters playing games with our economy.

Arrayed against this onslaught of cash is a vibrant coalition of consumer, housing, and labor groups called Americans for Financial Reform who are trying to keep Congress accountable to the folks that elected them. Recently, the Consumer Federation of America released a well-modeled and statistically-significant poll demonstrating that 57 percent of Americans support the creation of a new federal agency to protect consumers who purchase banking and other financial products and services. Those most adversely affected by many unfair and deceptive financial practices expressed the strongest support for a new consumer protection agency -- young adults under 35 years (70 percent), African-Americans (79 percent), Hispanic-Americans (70 percent), and low-income persons (69 percent).

Learn more about Mr. Talbott below and if you would like to receive more alerts on American Banksters contact us at info@banksterusa.org.

TALBOTT'S LOBBYING: According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Talbott's group, the Financial Services Roundtable, has already spent $3.6 million in 2009 on federal lobbying efforts. These efforts include killing caps on executive compensation, blasting Sen. Durbin's efforts to allow bankruptcy judges to rewrite the terms of a mortgage contract, including reducing (“cram down”) the amount owed on a mortgage, attempting to tank the creation of a Consumer Financial Protection Agency, and undermining efforts to cap credit card fees. In addition to their own formidable lobbying force, the Financial Services Roundtable has two insurance industry front groups: Agents for Change and The Coalition for Insurance Modernization.

TIDBITS FROM TALBOT:

With regard to the Obama administration's proposal for a [Consumer Financial Protection Agency], Talbot in speaking to BNet let slip, "Our goal is to kill it."

While appearing on C-Span to discuss the [Consumer Financial Protection Agency], Talbot was asked what type of regulation the the Roundtable would support. Talbott let the truth slip: "we are not for any regulation."

The Roundtable geared up to do battle against proposed constraints on bank fees. Showing a complete disregard for Americans suffering under a serious recession and rising bank fees, Talbott opined: "it's unfortunate that low- and moderate-income Americans find themselves (using) overdraft services more often."

When the Congress discussed limit the lobbying of bailed out institutions so that taxpayer money would not be used to lobby the government for more funds, Talbott wrapped the lobbyists in the American flag: "Our concern is with the limitations and new restrictions on free speech and the constitutional right to petition your government,"

Oblivious to the fact that the "too big to fail banks" held disproportionate responsibility for the financial crisis, Talbott fought to shelter them from regulation "We think that it's outrageous to disproportionately and unevenly impose the cost of new regulation on the top banks," The largest banks, he added, "should not be forced by the government to . . . pay the larger share of the funding costs of the [consumer financial protection agency] and regulatory oversight."

Opposing breaking up the biggest banks, Talbott opined that big banks just like people, dream the American dream: “They provide a number of benefits across the globe. We have a global economy, and these institutions can handle the finances of the world. They can also handle the finances of large, non-bank institutions like General Electric or Johnson & Johnson. They need these institutions [that] can handle the complex transactions. Simply breaking them up … then you’re discouraging a company from achieving the American Dream, working hard, earning money, producing products, and getting bigger.”

Talbott even opposed the public release of results of bank "stress tests": "I'm worried about the overreaction — people selling every bank short and pulling out all their deposits and hiding their money in the mattress."

Talbott discussing executive pay restrictions proposed for the 2008 TARP "bank bailout" bill: “We support the bill, but we are opposed to provisions on executive pay,” said Talbot. “It is not appropriate for government to be setting the salaries of executives.”

On the same topic, Talbot told ABC news that bank executives might quit their jobs if they were only paid only $500,000 per year. "The pay scale for Wall Street is different for the pay scale for America," Talbott. "I don't think the issue is a dollar amount. It's being paid what you're worth…"

Talbott, saying "cash-for-clunkers" program to stimulate auto sales is too expensive: "Though the bill has automaker support, the potential cost could doom it, says Scott Talbott, senior vice president of government affairs for the Financial Services Roundtable. 'The bill could become the victim of its own success. If everyone takes advantage of it, then the costs shoot up.'

Fear mongering on credit card reform, Talbot said: "The industry is restricted in setting credit terms based on the borrower's individual risk profile, so the price goes up for all borrowers."

Fear mongering on student loan relief, Talbot said forgiving student loans: "will increase the cost of tuition."

Our first award went to lobbyist extraordinaire Edward Yingling, of the American Bankers Association who for over 30 years has been a top lobbyist and frontman for the banking industry. "Few have done more to earn a place on this seat of honor. From his days as a cub lobbyist fighting to rid the nation of caps on interest rates, Glass-Steagall and other proven consumer protections to his recent yeoman's effort to keep bank fees unregulated and kill off the Consumer Financial Protection Agency, Edward Yingling has consistently been a true advocate for the American Bankster."