Fergasun Posted March 24, 2008 Share Posted March 24, 2008 Via the Market-Ticker Blog On or about March 16th, 2008, George W. Bush, both personally and through his Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, caused to be provided to JP Morgan/Chase a bribe(1) ultimately flowing from the United States Treasury in an amount not to exceed $30 billion dollars US, via The Federal Reserve, in order to induce JP Morgan/Chase to assume the liabilities and assets of Bear Stearns and Company at a price not determined in the free market or via public bidding, in violation of the limitations expressly set forth in The Federal Reserve Act of 1913, 12 USC Ch 6.... I have spent a solid week both reading The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 and thinking about the circumstances of this transaction trying to find a means under which "backstopping" Bear Stearns debt via The Federal Reserve is legally permissible. Despite my best efforts I can't find explicit or implicit authorization for "a put", as differentiated from a loan, anywhere in The Federal Reserve Act. You can call something whatever you'd like but if in point of fact there is no recourse then it is not a "loan" at all; it is a "PUT" or a "conditional payment", and under The Federal Reserve Act such an action appears to these eyes to be a direct violation of the law. It is widely reported that both Hank Paulson and George Bush personally "signed off on" The Bear Stearns "bailout" last Sunday. As such their direct and indirect actions, in my view, constitute a "High Crime and Misdemeanor" within the meaning of the United States Constitution and therefore subject George W. Bush to impeachment proceedings as proposed in the above sample article for same. Link Here for Online PetitionOkay, I admit this has a 0% chance of success, but it an interesting effort nonetheless. For those who don't think that Bear Stearns is being "bailed out", think again. The shares would go to zero if there was no Fed intervention... and then they could be auctioned off at fair market value. There's a rumour that BSC might go for $10/share... problem is no one knows what the true value is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry Posted March 24, 2008 Share Posted March 24, 2008 If this is the worst problem you've got with Bush, then . . . . (Only punchline I can think of is "You just might be a Republican".) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
@DCGoldPants Posted March 24, 2008 Share Posted March 24, 2008 Come on. Its over. They know its over. You can tell from the statements made by both the Prez and VP. If they could say "F the American People" on TV, they might. I guess they settled for "So?" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zguy28 Posted March 24, 2008 Share Posted March 24, 2008 I tell you what, people should be pissed at Bear Stearns, not the President. I saw the other day a figure that blew my mind. They said on the news that if you had $250K invested in B/S it was now worth $3K or something absurd. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The 12th Commandment Posted March 24, 2008 Share Posted March 24, 2008 I'd love the see the administrations individual stock portfolios. I'd assume they're public record and could found somewhere, aren't they? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zguy28 Posted March 24, 2008 Share Posted March 24, 2008 I'd love the see the administrations individual stock portfolios. I'd assume they're public record and could found somewhere, aren't they?Is your stock portfolio public record? Hand it over. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PleaseBlitz Posted March 24, 2008 Share Posted March 24, 2008 Has a petition EVER worked? :laugh: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The 12th Commandment Posted March 24, 2008 Share Posted March 24, 2008 Is your stock portfolio public record? Hand it over. Actually it is. http://www.pera.state.nm.us/financial.htm Ya, I'm mixed in with a lot of other people, but then again I don't make decisions that could directly impact the value of my (our) stocks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thiebear Posted March 24, 2008 Share Posted March 24, 2008 Okay, I admit this has a 0% chance of success, but it an interesting effort nonetheless. This sentence is a contradiction of itself. There is nothing worthy of 0% success. I'd like to see what one of the committee's say about this from Congress. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RyansRangers Posted March 24, 2008 Share Posted March 24, 2008 the deal was changed this morning anyway to $10 per share to avoid lawsuits Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zoony Posted March 24, 2008 Share Posted March 24, 2008 I tell you what, people should be pissed at Bear Stearns, not the President.I saw the other day a figure that blew my mind. They said on the news that if you had $250K invested in B/S it was now worth $3K or something absurd. Absolutely. I am not necessarily opposed to a bailout in the interest of protecting the foundation of our economy, but what I would like to see is some STRONG Congressional oversight. There were some extremely poor decisions made on the part of many of these institutions, all in the name of short term gains. Lots of people got rich, and don't kid yourself... those people are still rich today, despite their company going belly up. So I guess most of you in this thread (who aren't political hacks of course... YOU folks are easy to spot) that really want a President impeached over this would be content to sit by while our financial institutions crumble and the credit market dries up? Or maybe you'd like the President to personally oversee all of the financial transactions that occur in this country going forward? .... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Destino Posted March 24, 2008 Share Posted March 24, 2008 If this is the worst problem you've got with Bush, then . . . .(Only punchline I can think of is "You just might be a Republican".) Agreed. Of all the crap this white house has done and THIS is a reason to impeach?! That's just sad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NavyDave Posted March 24, 2008 Share Posted March 24, 2008 Hmm so bailing out the Pesos/Tequila should have been an impeachable offense too? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The 12th Commandment Posted March 24, 2008 Share Posted March 24, 2008 I don't know about pesos, but I have a feeling some members of our board were directly involved in the Tequila bailout. Points on the backside? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Predicto Posted March 24, 2008 Share Posted March 24, 2008 Maybe they had to do it. What went wrong in the financial system—and the long, hard task of fixing it THE marvellous edifice of modern finance took years to build. The world had a weekend to save it from collapsing. On March 16th America's Federal Reserve, by nature hardly impetuous, rewrote its rule-book by rescuing Bear Stearns, the country's fifth-largest investment bank, and agreeing to lend directly to other brokers. A couple of days later the Fed cut short-term interest rates—again—to 2.25%, marking the fastest loosening of monetary policy in a generation. It was a Herculean effort, and it staved off the outright catastrophe of a bank failure that had threatened to split Wall Street asunder. Even so, this week's brush with disaster contained two unsettling messages. One is analytical: the world needs new ways of thinking about finance and the risks it entails. The other is a warning: the crisis has opened a new, dangerous chapter. For all its mistakes, modern finance is worth saving—and the job looks as if it is still only half done. Rescuing Bear Stearns and its kind from their own folly may strike many people as overly charitable. For years Wall Street minted billions without showing much compassion. Yet the Fed put $30 billion of public money at risk for the best reason of all: the public interest. Bear is a counterparty to some $10 trillion of over-the-counter swaps. With the broker's collapse, the fear that these and other contracts would no longer be honoured would have infected the world's derivatives markets. Imagine those doubts raging in all the securities Bear traded and from there spreading across the financial system; then imagine what would happen to the economy in the financial nuclear winter that would follow. Bear Stearns may not have been too big to fail, but it was too entangled. http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10880718 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zoony Posted March 24, 2008 Share Posted March 24, 2008 Maybe they had to do it.http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10880718 Why would you wreck a perfectly good Republican-vs- Democrat thread? WTF is wrong with you? :slap: Back to how Cheney is the debil please. ....... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbooma Posted March 24, 2008 Share Posted March 24, 2008 You make it seem they WANTED to do this, there is a difference between WANT and HAVE TO, they had to do this. I find it funny all these people screaming let the people pay for their mistakes, do you have a clue the financial impact this would have on the entire country if we just let the worst happen??? FYI I was in Bolivia a couple of weeks ago and places there are no longer accepting dollars, let me remind you the boliviano is 7 x less then the dollar. That my friends is the world we live in right now, it is real. You will not want to see the financial implications if we just let people pay for their mistakes. The government has to step in even if we don't like it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MurrayH81 Posted March 24, 2008 Share Posted March 24, 2008 Yes, we do want to live in the world where people are held accountable for their gross lapses in judgement, and bad bets (otherwise we would live in lawless anarchy, and like it). It's time to do it voluntarily, rather than doing it by default in the next 20 years or so. Let's face it folks, we need to go through some extremely tough times, suck it up, learn how to regulate and hold people accountable in Government, Business and Society before our country will once again be on top. I would rather do it by our choice than await our own "fall of the Roman Empire". Wall Street, and those who get rich off of it need a big old "ass whooping" in their wallets and lives to return to the balance of sanity and proper function. What has Wall Street really done for us, ever? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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