- Part 1: Ten Years After The Financial Crisis, The Contagion Has Spread To Democracy Itself.
- Tim Geithner, BenBernankeand Hank Paulson dealt a catastrophic blow to public faith in American institutions.
- Part 2: Central Banks Have Gone Rogue, Putting Us All at Risk.
- It is time to curb central bank independence.Iftheirpowerful tools are going to be put to work, it should be in the service of the public and the economy.
Compiled by David Culver, Ed., Evergreene Digest
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Part 1: Ten Years After The Financial Crisis, The Contagion Has Spread To Democracy Itself.
Ben Bernanke (right) and Timothy Geithner (background) say they did what they had to do to “prevent the collapse of the financial system and avoid another Great Depression.” But what they really did was teach middle-class families a grim lesson. Bloomberg via Getty Images
Tim Geithner, Ben Bernanke and Hank Paulson dealt a catastrophic blow to public faith in American institutions.
Zach Carter, Huff Post
09/15/2018 | By the time Lehman Brothers filed for the largest bankruptcy in American history on Sept. 15, 2008, the country had been navigating stormy global financial waters for more than a year. Bear Stearns had been rescued in a bailout-facilitated merger with JPMorgan Chase, and the government had nationalized housing giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. For anyone paying attention to the financial system, the situation had been quite dire for a long time.
And yet throughout the mess, the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury had been permitting the largest banks in the country to funnel as much cash as they wanted to their shareholders ― even as it became clear those same banks could not pay their debts. Lehman itself had increased its dividend and announced a $100 million stock buyback at the beginning of 2008. Insurance giant AIG paid its highest dividend in company history on Sept. 19, 2008 ― three days after the Federal Reserve handed the insurance giant $85 billion in emergency funds. According to Stanford University Business School Professor Anat Admati, the 19 biggest American banks passed out $80 billion in dividends between the summer of 2007 and the close of 2008. They drew $160 billion in bailout funds from the U.S. Treasury, and untold billions from the Fed’s $7.7 trillion in emergency lending.
Zach Carter, Senior Reporter, HuffPost
Full story …
Part 2: Central Banks Have Gone Rogue, Putting Us All at Risk.
It is time to curb central bank independence. If their powerful tools are going to be put to work, it should be in the service of the public and the economy.
Ellen Brown, Truthdig.com
September 13, 2018 | Excluding institutions such as Blackrock and Vanguard, which are composed of multiple investors, the largest single players in global equity markets are now thought to be central banks themselves. An estimated 30 to 40 central banks are invested in the stock market, either directly or through their investment vehicles (sovereign wealth funds). According to David Haggith at Zero Hedge:
"Central banks buying stocks are effectively nationalizing U.S. corporations just to maintain the illusion that their “recovery” plan is working. … At first, their novel entry into the stock market was only intended to rescue imperiled corporations, such as General Motors during the first plunge into the Great Recession, but recently their efforts have shifted to propping up the entire stock market via major purchases of the most healthy companies on the market."
Ellen Brown is an attorney, chairman of the Public Banking Institute, and author of twelve books including "Web of Debt" and "The Public Bank Solution."
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Erin Wathen is the Senior Pastor of Saint Andrew Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Olathe, KS. She's a Kentucky native, a long-time desert dweller, and she writes about the sacred thread that runs through pretty much everything.
