Financial turnaround Tall Tales from the Banking Community are not hard to find because the Banksters are creating scandolous headlines at an ever faster rate this year. Yet these same parties and much of the Financial Press continue to insist that everything is a-okay. The apologists make very hollow arguments:
1)financial markets are the most efficient and effective in the world so why tinker with them;
2)financial markets, banking institutions and their smooth running are vital to the economy so remember the motto – They Are Too Big To Fail and stop over-regulating;
However in the past year there has seen notable financial titans straying from this Banksters Line that everything is A-OK. Suddenly some of the the key financial players who contributed mightily to the Financial meltdown of 2007-2010 have changed their tune. They are now saying they could have or should have or would have done things differently …. in effect trying to rewrite their past motivations and actions. So there have been some Gold medal winning Tall Tales coming from some of these ” Most Distinguished” Financial players and advisers. Here are the leading contenders for the Financial WormTongue TwoSpeak Gold Medal awards:
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was contending with his insistence that he had discussed the LIBOR rate setting issue in 2009 with Bank of England’s Mervyn King with King shooting back that there had been no warning of improper LIBOR setting from his American colleague.
JPMorganChase CEO Jamie Dimon showed chutzpah insisting in January of this year that financial reporters should lay off looking for “petty indiscretions” among the banks and then having to acknowledge in April a $2B … no a $5.6B…no a $9B Wlae of a Loss in the Derivative Markets;
But Ex-Goldman Sachs CEO and Ex-Governor of New Jersey Jon Corzine has no no Tall Tale for where $1Billion of clients moneys went other than he sent several hundreds of $millions to CEO Jamie Dimon’s JPMorganChase for safekeeping while Jon’s MFGlobal went bankrupt. Guess what still has yet to found…
But despite these valiant efforts to secure a Tall Tale Olympic Gold Medal for Financial Wormtongue Twospeak they all fell short of the 3 WormtongueTwoSpeak medalists:
Bronze medal winner is Larry Summers after steadfastly torpedoing tougher sanctions on the banks and short changing the recovery funding in early 2009 when it would be most effective – Larry now insists he wishes he would have done things differently except for and defiantly insisting that his advice to can Glass-Steagall and other banking regulations was the right thing to do. Larry is the model for flip flopping used by diving Platinum Medalist and Bain Capitalist Extraordinaire Mitt Romney.
Financial Excesses Enabler and ex-Fed Chairman Allan Greenspan has won the Silver medal with a never ending series of small Tall Tales growing ever Pinocchio longer/taller/faster for his great small reversals on what should have been done to control the Housing Bubble and Financial Players Derivative Gambling Dens and Banks and … and …. Mr. Greenspan has been unapologetically small wth his well crafted semi apologetic, elaborate twisting remarks that even the American Gymnasts would acknowledge as being contortions and contradictions of Olympic scale.. But these twisted efforts, als for Alan did not win the Gold Medal for Fractured Financial Fairy Tales.
That honor belongs to CEO Emeritus of CitiGroup, Sandi Weill, who this week said times have changed in ten years and theerefore a)the Glass Steagall act which separated Investment Banks for FDIC insured reatil banks and which Sandi worked so hard to repeal should now be re-instated and b)the big banks of which Sandi’s CitiGroup was the first and still is the Too-Big To Fail HeavyCapitalWeight Champion of the World. Congratulations Sandi!
Now unlike the Nobel and Olympic Prizes, Sandi, you have won the reverse right and obligation to deposit not less than $25 million into a fund that sponsors financial studies to defend, define and refine your notions that Glass Steagall should be re-instated and the largest banks should be broken up. If you do not fund this effort, Sandi, you still retain the Tall Tale Gold Medal but you now win the new honorific Two-faced Gold Medal Tall Tale Teller who does not have the courage of his own new found convictions. Welcome Sandi, to your Mission Improbable.