i would have too…

This is ridiculous.

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“When you encourage consumption by inhibiting your interest rates from rising to their equilibrium level, you will in fact buy problems, and we have in fact bought problems,”

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WHAT THE SHIT!?

Sitting at the center of the Solyndra scandal is an off-balance-sheet bank at the Treasury Department that dates back to 1973.

This little-known government bank, the Federal Financing Bank [FFB], had a zero balance in 2008 for green energy projects, but now, with little Congressional oversight, it is giving out billions of dollars in loans to White House pet projects often at dirt-cheap interest rates below 1%.

In July alone, the government bank, which had $61 billion in assets, lent nearly three quarters of a billion dollars in taxpayer funds with no Congressional checks and balances.

Plus the bank is funding the insolvent U.S. Post Office; the White House’s expensive green car projects at Ford Motor, Nissan and Tesla Motors; a $485 million loan to an expensive solar project that’s lost $160 million over the last three years that’s backed by Google, BP and Chevron; plus the FFB is funding the teetering HOPE housing bailout program, which gives delinquent mortgage borrowers breaks on their loans.

And according to KPMG’s audit report of the bank, the FFB is losing billions of dollars in taxpayer money because it is forgoing collecting interest costs on already inexpensive loans that are financing projects at agencies like the Agriculture Dept.

What’s scary for taxpayers is this: The FFB can borrow unlimited amounts of taxpayer money from the Treasury for these kinds of political pet projects. Under the 1973 “FFB Act, the bank may, with the approval of the Secretary, borrow without limit from the Treasury,” says the bank’s audited statements from KPMG.

The Treasury Department’s inspector general is now investigating the bank over its $528 million loan to Solyndra. FFB’s chairman of the board is Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, and the bank’s board executives are Treasury officials.

Who is getting the FFB’s green energy money? As the White House and Democrats in Congress rail against tax breaks for oil companies, the FFB gave taxpayer loans to green companies with high cash burn that were spilling red ink.

For instance, Solyndra was still getting loans from the FFB up until it filed for bankruptcy. It got $3 million in loans at a 0.89% rate just a month and a half before it filed for bankruptcy protection.

The FFB is also giving loans to risky solar companies as well as to a money-losing solar energy outfit backed by companies such as Google, Morgan Stanley, Chevron and BP that has spilled $160 million in red ink for the last three years.

In the month of July alone, the FFB gave a $12.5 million loan to Abound Solar; 60% of Abound’s balance sheet will come from federal taxpayers, or $400 million in guaranteed federal loans.

FFB also gave a $117,330 loan to the struggling Kahuku Wind Power and more than $77 million to the Solar Partners companies, which are due $485 million in White House approved loans.

The Solar Partners companies are units of BrightSource Energy, which is building a massive solar-powered energy plant near the Mojave Desert in San Bernardino, California.

BrightSource lost $45 million in 2008, $44 million in 2009, and $72 million in 2010, even though it has rich backers that include Google, Chevron, Morgan Stanley and BP, among others, says FOX News analyst James Farrell.

Besides the green energy projects, the FFB provides a backdoor government bailout of the US Post Office, which has been spilling red ink. The FFB has lent the US Post Office so far $12.6 billion. The Post Office faces an estimated $10 billion shortfall this year, as the Internet, companies like FedEx and UPS, and high retiree health-benefit costs slice into its bottom line.

And the government bank gave loans to car and car parts manufacturers to retrofit their plants to make green cars. The FFB lent Ford Motor $163 million for its green car programs. The FFB is now financing projects at Fisker Automotive, Nissan North America and Tesla Motors, with $528.6 million, $1.4 billion and $465 million in federal loans, respectively.

However, the FFB’s balance sheet is backed by U.S. taxpayers, “except for loans to the U.S. Postal Service,” says KPMG’s audited statements for the bank. Because you, U.S. taxpayers, are the cushion for the bank, unlike other banks, the FFB “does not maintain a reserve for loan losses,” says the KPMG report.

Not booking loan loss reserves would get any other bank in trouble with federal bank regulators such as the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the Federal Reserve and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Why can the FFB get away with this?

Because the KPMG report says the bank told it in true Pollyannish fashion that “no future credit-related losses are expected,” even though Solyndra clearly disputes that optimistic bureaucratic resolve. (The bank did earn $449.5 million for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2010, up slightly from $444.2 million in fiscal 2009.)

Why was this federal government bank created in the first place? Congress launched the FFB in 1973 to “reduce the costs of Federal and federally assisted borrowings,” smoothing the way for the government’s fiscal policies — fiscal policies which at the time were wading into the private credit markets like never before.

At the time, the federal government first began to see an avalanche of Congressionally approved off-budget financing for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Sallie Mae. These quasi-government operations began to help grease loans for housing and for students by aiding loans securitized as bonds in the secondary markets. Banks packaged these loans as securities and sold them on to Fannie, Freddie and Sallie Mae.

These bonds though began to compete with Treasury securities, and Congress at the time feared Treasury would have to offer higher yields to attract investors away from those securities. The Vietnam war was still going, and the government was struggling to pay for the war and at the same time was battling a deep recession that had hit the U.S. economy, along with an oil shock exacerbated when OPEC plus Egypt, Syria and Tunisia hit the U.S. with an oil embargo due to its support of Israel in the Yom Kippur War with Egypt and Syria.

So to keep the government’s borrowing costs low, Congress launched the FFB and gave it broad statutory authority to purchase any “bonds issued, sold, or guaranteed by federal agencies,” says KPMG’s audit report. The bank then became a vehicle through which all sorts of federal agencies could finance their programs.

Since then, the FFB has helped finance a broad range of government operations, from agricultural to military programs, to now green energy projects.

Congress almost got the FFB in hot water beginning in 2006 when lawmakers pressured then Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to open the window at the FFB to help finance student loans.
At the time, Sallie Mae was posting losses as students in droves began defaulting on their high-priced college loans.

A slew of lenders, about a seventh of the student loan market at the time, had stopped giving federally guaranteed student loans. Sallie Mae then pressured lawmakers such as Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT) to give student lenders a bailout via the Federal Financing Bank, but President George W. Bush frowned on that, and the effort went nowhere.

And now it’s the White House’s use of the FFB for green energy projects that will likely raise eyebrows.

The FFB lent no money to green companies backed by Department of Energy guarantees from 2007 to 2008, even though it could have done so starting in 2007 under the Energy Policy Act of 2005, signed into law under President George W. Bush.

That act authorized $42 billion in federal green energy loans, notes FOX News analyst Farrell.
Under the 2005 law, the government could make federal loans for companies battling greenhouse gas emissions, energy efficiency and renewable energy, as well as nuclear power projects.

The FFB then began giving green loans backed by the Dept. of Energy after the Obama Administration’s stimulus bill of 2009 was enacted. After stimulus was signed into law by President Barack Obama, the FFB then began funding clean energy programs, backed by $2.4 billion appropriated by Congress. Under this program, Solyndra got $528 million.

The FFB doesn’t just fund green energy projects. It also funds the Home Ownership Preservation Entity (HOPE) Fund, enacted under the Bush Administration to help distressed borrowers avoid foreclosure by reducing their mortgage payments.

The bank is going full bore in helping to fund the White House’s foreclosure bailouts via buying HOPE bonds, a program that could hit $300 billion in federal costs.

The bonds essentially give investors a stake in government housing bailouts. But what should give taxpayers pause is this: the Treasury Secretary can issue HOPE bonds “without any limitations as to the purchaser of the issuance,” KPMG’s audited statements note.

Translation: The Treasury can willy nilly issue these bonds, and the FFB then buys the HOPE bonds that investors don’t’ want.

“Due to the cost of issuing special purpose bonds to the public, the Secretary of the Treasury has decided to issue the HOPE bonds to the bank,” KPMG notes in its report.

That means those bonds now sit on FFB’s balance sheet, more than $492 million worth. “The bank (FFB) borrowed funds from Treasury,” says KPMG’s audit, “to purchase the HOPE bonds.”

The amounts involved can rise to $300 billion, because the Hope for Homeowners Act authorizes Treasury to issue up to $300 billion in HOPE bonds. “FFB does not have the money to buy the bonds, so it has to borrow money from Treasury to buy the bonds,” notes FOX News analyst Farrell.

However, KPMG notes in its report that “the purchase of HOPE bonds is consistent with the core mission of the Bank.”

The FFB also acts as essentially a slush bank for federal loans, an operation that helps clean up the balance sheets of other federal agencies. KPMG notes that the “lending policy of the bank is flexible enough to preclude the need for any accumulation of pools of funds by agencies.”
But the FFB also lets federal agencies slide on interest costs they owe the bank on loans, even though their interest rates are dirt cheap.

For instance, the FFB has been hit with losses on loans to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, loans the Agriculture Dept. received to service rural utilities. The Agriculture Dept. is stiffing the FBB on interest it owes on these loans, a cumulative $1.7 billion in losses here.

The bank also lets the General Services Administration [GSA], as well as “Historically Black Colleges and Universities,” and the Veteran Administration slide on interest costs on their loans, too. The bank lets them defer interest costs “on their loans until future periods,” the KMPG report says.

Lots on the chopping block that can harm the raising of money in the municipal markets.

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“……In an internal vote on Tuesday, 11 deputies from Merkel’s CDU/CSU group voted against the motion and two abstained. Coalition sources said they expected between 2 and 5 FDP lawmakers to vote against and up to 6 to abstain.

If more than 19 coalition lawmakers vote against or abstain, Merkel will be dependent on opposition votes in a political humiliation that could weaken her ability to push through future rescues……..

Leverage would make it possible to borrow more, probably from the European Central Bank, for financial firefighting without increasing the EFSF’s size, but critics say it would also raise German taxpayers’ liability for any losses.

Some lawmakers are concerned that EU officials are just waiting for them to approve what they were assured would be the final increase before pressing ahead with bigger bailout plans.

French Finance Minister Francois Baroin made clear there were tactical reasons to avoid discussing how to boost the fund’s firepower before the German decision.

“It is out of the question to put forward, three days from the Bundestag (lower house) vote, the issue of whether we should increase the fund… Let’s not open Pandora’s box on something that is a red flag for Germany,” he said.

Prime Minister Francois Fillon told parliament France would set out proposals to step up the battle against “speculative attacks” on the euro zone once the German vote was over.

The fund’s status was bound to evolve but it was premature to say whether it might work “like an equity fund with a lever effect,” Baroin added.

Merkel assured Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou at a meeting on Tuesday evening in Berlin that Germany wants a strong Greece and would do everything necessary for that. She also said she was confident her coalition would have the votes on its own to pass measures boosting the euro zone rescue fund…….”

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The  Greeks will be rioting as their Parliament have just about passed new tax measures…  

Parliamentary Vote Details 

Enjoy your depression while we enjoy a jet setting life style on your dime….

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How much is too much for you ?

Are you sick of the picture being painted ? Even if you do not pay attention to the world you know deep down what is being projected in papers and mainstream media are not congruous to reality. How long can you live with finding out the truth only after the shit hits the fan ?

Are you thirsting for a real person with real ideas ?

Look no further than….

I’m going to try and challenge this notion.

The banks make a free vig off the tax payers back thanks to the federal reserve… a non government entitity owned by 12 corporations.

The banks do not lend for two reasons; a) they needed and still need the liquidity from time to time to write down bad assets off of the taxpayers back and  b) the credit worthiness of the country has been lowered due to banks and greed racking up enormous debt.

Oh and there is a liquidity crisis occurring because of Europe which the banks had to have seen and know of for many years.

So no DICK it is not just uncle sam that has ruined the banking system.

Furthermore the rules, while admittedly restrictive, are a  result of a blow back from greedy cocaine snorting criminals committing fraud and consipracy against the citizens of the planet and the global economy.

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Really

BERLIN (AP) — German officials on Monday downplayed prospects of any quick and dramatic change of course in the eurozone debt crisis, days before a parliamentary vote on beefing up the continent’s rescue fund.

Weekend meetings of global financial leaders in Washington raised hopes of a change in strategy, with officials indicating that would focus on further boosting the firepower of the euro440 billion ($595 billion) rescue fund — perhaps by allowing it to tap loans from the European Central Bank or otherwise leveraging its lending capacity.

Hopes for such a move boosted European stock markets on Monday, with German and French bank shares rising strongly.

However, ahead of a parliamentary vote Thursday on changes to the fund that eurozone leaders already agreed to in July, Berlin was keen to underline its attachment to its often-criticized step-by-step approach.

Thursday’s vote on expanding the powers of the rescue fund, the so-called European Financial Stability Facility, will be followed over the coming months by final decisions on a second bailout package for Greece and on a permanent rescue mechanism meant to replace the EFSF from 2013, Finance Ministry spokesman Martin Kotthaus noted.

“That is quite simply the procedure that lies in front of us — we will work through it step by step,” Kotthaus said.

When asked in Washington whether he supported the idea of leveraging the rescue fund, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said: “Of course we will use the EFSF in the most efficient way possible.”

The discussion about the new rescue fund powers is taking place amid speculation that Greece ultimately will be unable to pay its debts and will have to force heavy losses on bondholders. That would be beyond a 21 percent sacrifice agreed to under a second, euro109 billion bailout deal for Greece. Greek and other officials deny that will happen.

In an interview with n-tv television Monday, Schaueble was asked whether there is a plan to move up the effective July 2013 date of the long-term rescue mechanism, or ESM.

Schaeuble pointed out that the process of establishing the ESM, which would allow a country to go bankrupt and default on its debts, takes time.

“That doesn’t go very fast,” Schaeuble said. “If we could do it faster … it would be good, but probably we will need the time that we have calculated.”

If you haven’t noticed, it’s because nobody cares. Considerably more important issues going on than whether or not Congressment will spend this time deliberating what to name Post Office locations that may or may not be around next year.

Read here, if you even care to.

The standoff continues Monday between the House and the Senate over emergency funding, which is holding up a short-term spending measure to keep government running into the new fiscal year that begins this weekend.

The measure includes additional money to fill the almost depleted emergency aid coffers of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Army Corps of Engineers following Hurricane Irene, Tropical Storm Lee, wildfires and tornadoes so far this year.

House Republicans have passed a bill that cuts spending elsewhere to offset some of the increased disaster relief aid. Democrats oppose offsets for emergency aid, saying disaster relief for Americans in need should be unencumbered. The Democratic-led Senate rejected the House measure on Friday by a 59-36 vote.

The package would fund the government for the first seven weeks of the new fiscal year that starts Saturday.

For the third time in six months, a partial government shutdown is possible if the Republican-led House and Democratic-controlled Senate fail to agree on the short-term spending plan by Friday — the end of the current fiscal year.

The measure currently under deliberation — which would keep Washington running through Nov. 18 — includes critical new disaster funding assistance for states hit hard by Hurricane Irene, Tropical Storm Lee, and a series of recent wildfires and tornadoes.

But Republicans want less disaster aid than their Democratic counterparts, and want to pay for it partly by cutting funding for programs designed to spur clean energy innovation.

The House passed a “common sense measure,” House Speaker John Boehner, an Ohio Republican, told reporters during the Senate vote. “It’s time for the Senate to move.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, announced his intention to push for a new vote Monday on a compromise package incorporating the GOP’s lower overall disaster relief spending levels while eliminating any cuts to clean energy programs.

Congressmen and senators need to “cool off for a little bit,” Reid said Friday. “There’s a compromise here.”

“More reasonable heads will prevail,” he predicted.

Meanwhile, the agency responsible for doling out disaster relief money — FEMA — could run out of funds as soon as Monday, according to Reid.

T minus 4 days till shutdown…..

Endless ways to waste your money….

ORLANDO — Former Godfather Pizza CEO Herman Cain won the Presidency 5 straw poll here Saturday, delivering a blow to Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s frontrunner status and a victory for a candidate who has struggled to transform his grassroots popularity into strong showings in national polls.

“Tonight’s winner is Herman Cain,” Florida Gov. Rick Scott announced. “It shows you something, the road to the White House come through Florida, and it pays to spend time here.”

He received 37 percent of the more than 2,600 votes cast.

“Thank you to the Republican voters for this incredible honor of being named the winner of the Presidency 5 straw poll in Florida today,” Mr. Cain said. “This is a sign of our growing momentum and my candidacy that cannot be ignored. I will continue to share my message of ‘common-sense solutions’ across this country and look forward to spending more time in Florida, a critical state for both the nomination and the general election.”

Read the rest here.

Bloomberg has obtained documents that describe the EU speeding up a fund called European Stability Mechanism.

Was not supposed to kick off until mid 2013, but sources are saying this will be discussed and possibly sped up to stem sovereign debt woes.

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STORY HERE

Warren Buffett had everyone crunching the numbers this past week with his claim that he pays more in taxes than his secretary, and that millionaires need to their fair share in taxes. This assertion prompted President Obama to propose the Buffett Tax on Monday to make sure millionaires are taxed at higher rates than their secretaries.

And so the Buffett Tax debate began.

Read more: http://smallbusiness.foxbusiness.com/entrepreneurs/2011/09/23/small-businesses-weigh-in-on-buffett-tax/#ixzz1YqBjfPwK