Who else saw Bill Black on PBS? Whoa,

[Go2Peace]

He's saying it! There was massive, straight out fraud and there should be **thousands** of people brought to justice!

Furthermore, he accuses the Banks of **LEGALLY** accountable and enforcable extortion.

Can someone who knows how post the interview?

Who is Bill Black? Former Bank Regulator
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_K._Black

It was a great interview because, while we all know this happened, I have yet heard a professional regulator actually set a framework, to follow for full prosecution.

Updated: Link to video and transcript online:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business/jan-june10/solman_02-17.html

____________________________________________________________________________________

OK, trying to transcript some:



Black - First stop them from getting any bigger.

Black - Appearance of fraud in nearly every case Fitch examined, and they said that "normal underwriting would have detected most of those frauds, so they 'created a system of loan brokers" and used them to purposely create bad loans and "gutted underwriting"

Black - "The 19 largest institutions are systemically dangerous institutions, many are already insolvent with no real market value.

Solman - What do you mean, they are reporting large enough profits to give out Huge bonuses.

Black - They were able to get congress to extort F.A.S.B, which is the Accounting Standards Board, to change the rules, so that you no longer have to recognize losses, unless or until, you actually sell them.

Solman - Why would that be extorting?

Black - They (Congress) said to FASB, you will change the accounting rules, so that Banks no longer have to recognize their losses. or we will remove your authority...."


He went on further to state that the banks assets are worth abut 25 cents on the dollar and most all of the 19 largest institutions are actually pretty much insolvent (even as they give out huge bonuses)

[Go2Peace]

1. nobody else saw it? Or maybe folks have seen him before? I don't watch much TV

[Go2Peace]

2. whoever unrec'd, I am not expecting this to get to the greatest page. Just wondering who else saw it

So you can relax..

[hansont]

3. It was a segment with Paul Solman

MAKING SENSE: Paul Solman continues his series "Making Sense" of financial news by interviewing a former banking regulator who thinks today's bankers are not regulated enough.


I am searching to see if I can find it. Might not go up until tomorrow.

[Digit]

7. I was looking for it also

I will check tomorrow.
Sounds like a "must see".

[ipaint]

4. Bill moyers interview.

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04032009/watch.html

Excellent young turk interview with him:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9HKKyNPe4k&feature=fvw

There are people who know how to clean this financial mess up and go after the criminals that caused it. They are ignored by the administration. In fact the perpetrators are in the administration.

[SoCalDem]

5. Moyers is on Wednesday?

damn I missed it

[ipaint]

8. I didn't say moyers was on wed.

I posted the interview for people who are interested in what Black has to say.

[SoCalDem]

9. duh... I just noticed the date in your link

I probably watched it.. I record all his shows & watch them later..

I will sure miss him when he retires:(

[ipaint]

11. No problem. Moyers is the last of his kind on TV.

He'll be leaving a huge void.

[ipaint]

6. here you go

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business/jan-june10/solman_02-17.html

[ipaint]

10. Some of the interview with solman

PAUL SOLMAN: What would you have us do about the major financial institutions as they currently exist?

WILLIAM BLACK: First, stop them from getting bigger. The 19 largest institutions are what we call systemically dangerous institutions. Many of them are already insolvent on any real market value basis.

PAUL SOLMAN: What do you mean insolvent? I mean, they're reporting large enough profits, that they can give bonuses to their employees.

WILLIAM BLACK: They were able to get Congress to extort FASB, which is the Accounting Standards Board, to change the rules, so that you no longer have to recognize losses on your bad loans, unless and until you actually sell them.

PAUL SOLMAN: Extort FASB? Why would it be extorting FASB?

WILLIAM BLACK: They said, you will change the rules, and you will change the rules such that banks no longer have to recognize their losses, or we will remove your authority over the accounting rules, which is the whole reason for existence for FASB, right? So, that's extortion in anybody's language.

PAUL SOLMAN: But they did that in order to give financial institutions some breathing room. After all, these assets were selling at fire-sale prices. Eventually, they would come back up. So, let things calm down and then price them.

WILLIAM BLACK: No. I mean, now, that -- you're again stating the rhetoric that was used, but that's not the reality. This was done in 2009. The secondary market in subprime collapsed in March of 2007. So, this wasn't some weird idiosyncratic price. And it's not correct that these assets didn't sell. They just sold at their true economic value, which is about 25 cents on the dollar, in terms of the collateralized debt obligations.

Now, if you have 75 percent losses, how many institutions that have large amounts of CDOs could possibly be solvent? And the answer is not many. And, so, they had the political juice to get the accounting rules changed. Now, this is -- of course, it was accounting fraud that allowed you to value these CDOs as if they were money good assets, AAA assets and such, when they were, in fact, loans overwhelmingly backed by fraudulent mortgages.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business/jan-june10/solman_02-17.html

[FarCenter]

12. On the role of the mortgage brokers and loan officers -- the root of the fraud

PAUL SOLMAN: So, what would you do?

WILLIAM BLACK: I would prosecute the felons.

So, in September 2004, the FBI began publicly warning that there was -- quote, unquote -- "epidemic" of mortgage fraud, and it predicted that it would produce an economic crisis, if it were not dealt with. The FBI has also said that 80 percent of the mortgage fraud losses occur when lender personnel are involved. So, Fitch looks at a small sample of these loans, finally, in November 2007.

PAUL SOLMAN: Fitch is one of the ratings agencies?

WILLIAM BLACK: Yes. It's the smallest of the big three.

What did they find? They said, the results were disconcerting, in that there was the appearance of fraud in nearly every file we examined. And they said that normal underwriting would have detected all of those frauds.

So, this is coming from the lenders overwhelmingly. They created incentive systems for the loan brokers and the loan officers that were based overwhelmingly on volume, and nothing on quality. We know that they gutted their underwriting standards. We know that you got in trouble if you were moral and tried to be a good officer and protect the organization from loss.

PAUL SOLMAN: But, if I were a loan officer in those days, I think I would have said to myself, I'm getting money into the hands of people who previously wouldn't have been able to buy a home. And we all think homeownership is a good thing in America.

WILLIAM BLACK: Well, we have lots of things that we study in criminology of what we call neutralization techniques, where people try to interpret their criminal acts as socially beneficial. So, yes, psychologically, maybe that happened sometimes.

But until the FBI brings these cases, we're not going to have we're not going to have definitive information.

[Digit]

13. I was selling real estate until a few years ago

I can recall lenders telling many of my buyers they could afford much much more house than was reasonable. I was shocked at the ratios being allowed so I always counseled my buyers (I was representing them as a buyer's agent) that they might want to scale back. I was always able to reason with them so never had to show them something that would jeopardize their financial situation or cause them to fall in love with more house than was affordable. Yes, I made less money than I could have made had I sold a more expensive home, but what the lenders were proposing was nuts!

[defendandprotect]

15. And isn't Mueller still head of the FBI . . . ??? Another R never replaced by Obama....???

[defendandprotect]

14. Same as S&L Theft and Embezzlements and bailouts -- $600 billion or more at that time...

possibly $800 billion --

[1776Forever]

16. That is what this post about an article on how "they" are destroying the middle class is about:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7727909

[bvar22]

17. But...but...THEY claim "THEY saved the Economy".

Hank Paulson with Co-Conspirators

NOW we have Your Children’s Money too !!!
And there is not a fucking thing you can do about it!
Now THIS is “Bi-Partisanship” !
Better get used to it!!
Hahahahahahahahaha!

[upi402]

19. Rahm and Summers must be lurking in the shadows

I will check for the clip. It's so disheartening. But the pic helps.

As stated above, the perps are back and on Obamas team.

[live love laugh]

18. And many here at DU supported them to my horror. nt

[bvar22]

20. "Thank GAWD it passed !!!

The same ones who support the Senate Health Care Deform Bill.