You know how that little story making the rounds of our elite media which the Republican racists supporters of John McCain have been promoting? The one where the current global financial crisis was caused entirely by Obama’s illicit connection to Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac and their nefarious plan to give bad mortgage loans to shiftless, lazy unqualified black people? It’s been a standard line at any Palin/McCain rally, and I’ve heard it belched out countless Republican pundits on television every chance they get. But folks, it just ain’t true no matter how many thousands of times they repeat this lie, as this story helps to demonstrate:
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Federal and New York state prosecutors have launched a broad investigation of the credit default swap market, asking whether CDS data was manipulated by investors to squeeze financial stocks amid a global credit crisis.
The prosecutors said they are looking at whether investors drove up prices of CDS transactions reported to data providers but never actually completed. Rising CDS prices, indicating a higher risk of debt default, drove down prices of bank stocks during the past year.
Now, unless those “investors” (short for white collar criminals) can be proven to be Obama supporters and/or black people with bad mortgages who ruined our economy just so McCain would lose the election, I don’t think we can blame the Democrats or Obama for their actions manipulating the markets. Effectively, what these insiders are accused of doing is kicking over the tottering tower of lies and deceits which investment banks and mortgage lenders had created in order to fuel the housing bubble. And why did they do it? Apparently for that most ancient of motives: pure greed.
Cuomo’s office said it has issued subpoenas seeking data from a range of financial market players, including stock exchanges, hedge funds and three companies that process swap trades: clearing agent Depository Trust Clearing Corp, CDS data provider Markit, and market data and news company Bloomberg LP.
CDS are a form of insurance that bond buyers can purchase to protect themselves against a default. As more investors rely on CDS data to judge a company’s financial health, rising CDS prices sent bank stocks plunging and disrupted trading and prime brokerage businesses.
The CDS inquiry began several weeks ago but is still in its preliminary stages, the prosecutors said. As in any market-manipulation probe, it is difficult for government authorities to prove a trader intended to break the rules.
You see, when you can rig the game, or to use a more familiar metaphor, guide Adam Smith’s invisible hand to go where you want it to go and do what you want it to do, you can make a nice little profit off your manipulation of the markets. And leave all the “idiots” crying over their losses while you laugh yourself all the way to your anonymous offshore bank accounts.
“I was in this game for the money,” he continued. “The low hanging fruit, i.e. idiots whose parents paid for prep school, Yale, and then the Harvard MBA, was there for the taking. These people who were (often) truly not worthy of the education they received (or supposedly received) rose to the top of companies such as AIG, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers and all levels of our government.
“All of this behavior supporting the Aristocracy only ended up making it easier for me to find people stupid enough to take the other side of my trades. God bless America.”
Ain’t unregulated unfettered capitalism wunnerful!
It’s a throwback to Nixon’s southern strategy finally implemented by Reagan during the 1980 election. Well, nothing else has worked, why not.
They tried the Islamic terrorist tactic, “Hussein” means terrorist, so does “Ayers,” and didn’t scare enough with that one. They tried the charge of “socialist” economics, sharing the wealth with the rich and corporations, and it didn’t succeed either.
However, that Black men can’t run the country except to bring back welfare for lazy, promiscuous freeloading Black women is still out there.
What’s left?
You’d think they’d be happy at all the impending cadillac sales sure to come if Obama wins.
<snark>
You’re correct. Sorry I didn’t catch or read beyond your last snarky comments. Yes, Cadillac will flourish after Obama is elected. I’m actually thinking of getting a small one, still referred to as a Corolla. But I’m not big on names so long as the thing runs.
Its called networking, the inbred freak who was a member of “Skull and Bones” is somehow deserving of a 60 million dollar a year salary. The highly competent H.R. or payroll person whose family is not connected with the elite makes $60,000 at most. The unpatriotic, selfish clown Andrew Lahde took advantage of the dimwitted aristocracy. But remember he only got his money due to a lack of a moral compass. He is a criminal.
We have been occupied and taken advantage of by these worthless people who through family and connections make 60 million a year and destroyed our economy. Its not class war its an occupation by the privileged few. On second thought it is a war.
That whole letter is worth a read. Isn’t it funny has this screed against our oligarchic society gets published in a foreign paper instead of an American one?
I’d say typical rather than funny, but I know what you mean.
Typical indeed. The FT and the Guardian ran stories on the letter, but not the NY Times or the Wall Street Journal, even though Lahde’s fund is apparently the one that made the greatest profits off the subprime crisis. Guess what he thinks about the crisis isn’t news.
To its credit, the LA Times does have a story on this, but then, Lahde’s fund was based in Santa Monica.