More Staggering Revelations of Financial Corruption

There is not a whole lot that needs to be added to this. I have stated numerous times that fraudsters need to keep their hands off other peoples money. Generally I have been referring to the private individuals or groups of individuals. But that is likely shortsighted. The government and large institutions are chalk full of these types as well.

In 2007 when this crisis began, I recall the media claiming that America will know what to do, and they will do it, ruthlessly, because they understand the capitalist system. This would not be another Japan, and another lost decade. The people in charge will act quickly, decisively, and manage this crisis will skill and determination. Zip that tape forward, and the States is mired in TRILLION dollar deficits, the world has lost TRILLIONS in wealth. And the people that created this mess remain in position of influence - how this will be written in the history will be most interesting.

(Many Thanks to Karl Denninger Market Ticker November 2 2009)

Monday, November 2. 2009 Posted by Karl Denninger in Corruption at 06:37 Is It ALL A Scam? (BAC)

What's going on here?

Nov. 2 (Bloomberg) -- At the end of a March 6, 2000, conference call with the financial adviser David Rubin, city of Atlanta officials disqualified the winning bid for a $453.3 million investment-management contract.

The decision shaved $58,000 off what Atlanta taxpayers would have earned from the $13.5 million high bid and awarded the account to runner-up Bank of America Corp., according to a copy of city documents obtained under the Georgia Records Act.

Only after the Internal Revenue Service investigated five years later did local officials learn that Rubin’s firm, CDR Financial Products Inc., had entered into a secret side agreement with the Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank. CDR’s share would be worth as much as $340,000, based on city and federal records.

But the bigger issue here - the societal issue - is how crooked the entire marketplace has become for securities in general. Not just for end-user mortgages but also for securitizations, municipal bonds (as outlined in this article) -virtually everything!

“We need a worldview change about transparency and that includes municipal finance,” said Elizabeth Warren, chairwoman of the Congressional Oversight Panel for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, in an interview with Bloomberg last month.

Indeed. But so far we see zero indication that we're going to get it. Municipal finance is just one tiny piece of the scam-ridden world of financial back-room deals.

Witness the mortgage-backed bond business, where firms such as Goldman Sachs have admitted shorting the very mortgage-backed securities they were packaging and selling! McClatchy ran a story this weekend on the matterwhich I opined on this morning; the salient factor here being not that McClatchy picked this up, but that it took two years for the so-called "mainstream DC media" to do so!