You Won't Believe What Hank Paulson Revealed To Hedge Funders Right Before The Financial Crisis

[deminks]

http://www.businessinsider.com/bloomberg-hank-paulson-revealed-insider-information-to-hedge-funds-2011-11

The bombshell reports from Bloomberg Markets delving into the events that transpired amid the 2008 financial crisis just keep coming, and this time it concerns some dubious actions by former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson.

The newest expose by Richard Teitelbaum reveals that in July 2008, then-Treasury Secretary Paulson met with several hedge fund managers and told them that a government takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was a very real possibility.

Just a week prior to that meeting, he had testified in the Senate and told media outlets that government intervention in Fannie and Freddie was near impossible.

(snip)

In case anybody needs a refresher: Fannie and Freddie were infamously bailed out by the federal government on Sept. 6, 2008.

(end snip)

[xchrom]

1. He needs a visit from the DOJ - like that will happen. Nt

[Pachamama]

4. Now the "exemption letter" he wanted makes soooo much sense....

Remember that letter exempting him from any future prosecution? I do..... He knew he was a criminal.... The whole pack of the Goldman Sachs Alums & Bankers & friends of Bush.... :grr:

[xchrom]

8. +1

[Bozita]

29. No, that's in the past. We need to look to the future!

I once thought that almost all crimes were committed in the past.

[peacebird]

2. Isn't that totally illegal? And when will he & the hedge fund Mgrs who traded with that inside info

Be prosecuted, fined and sent to jail?

Perhaps we should bombard Holder and our senators demanding action?

[Scuba]

3. Holder's busy. He heard some woman in Michigan has been ....

... approved by the State to grow MMJ for her ill daughter so he doesn't have time for Wall Street crooks.

[hatrack]

5. Yes, first things first - it's all a question of priorities, y'know?

:eyes:

[bvar22]

14. When will they be sent to jail?

Paulson with Co-Conspirators

Now THIS is Bi-Partisanship!





You will know them by their WORKS,
not by their excuses.
Solidarity99!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[mod mom]

15. One big frickin Money Party.

:mad:

[Huey P. Long]

6. Wow, not only did GS lie to clients by selling them junk claiming to be AAA

The former boss man covered for them, AND did a bit of that to Congress!

Criminal enterprise. Organized crime.

[meow2u3]

11. And state-sponsored insider trading, at that

That makes it even more egregious. State-sponsored organized crime. :puke:

[tex-wyo-dem]

27. Organized crime is the only true description of this....

a pool of sharks, these banksters...

Watching out for each other's backs, while the rest of us lose out.

But, you know, at the same time they wouldn't skip a beat to stab each other in the back if it meant making an extra buck. That's just the way organized crime operates.

[uponit7771]

7. No wonder there was so much naked shorting, these people are disgusting

[deminks]

9. "One fund manager at the meeting was so shocked that he went to his lawyer afterwards."

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/11/29/1040724/-Breaking:-Sec-Paulson-Gave-Hedge-Funds-Advance-Notice-of-GSE-Bailouts?via=siderecent

(snip)

Note how this info was given to Paulson's friends and Goldman alumni -- not to fund managers at Fidelity and Vanguard, who manage the 401(k) plans of working people. Wonder why that was.

We all know that Lloyd Blankfein, the CEO of Goldman Sachs was in the room when Henry Paulson made decisions about the government bailout of AIG. Yes -- it is suspicious that Goldman was the biggest benefactor of the bailout. We never really thought that Blankfein was there to give neutral advice, did we?

(end snip)

[truedelphi]

20. Yep and yep.

And despite the fact that these revelations were basically the outing of "insider" information, the article claims that there is no way to criminalize Paulson's behavior.

Lawd Amighty - if this had been some low life file clerk or secretary revealing all this to a family member with stock market connections, and she was found out to have done so, she'd be in a jail cell, right?

Anyone else here remember the plight of big time stock market defrauder Martha Stewart!

[deminks]

10. Hank Paulson’s inside jobs

http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2011/11/29/hank-paulsons-inside-jobs/

What on earth did Hank Paulson think his job was in the summer of 2008? As far as most of us were concerned, he was secretary of the US Treasury, answerable to the US people and to the president. But at the same time, in secret meetings, Paulson was hanging out with his old Goldman Sachs buddies, giving them invaluable information about what he was thinking in his new job.

The first news of this behavior came in October 2009, when Andrew Ross Sorkin revealed that Paulson had met with the entire board of Goldman Sachs in a Moscow hotel suite for an hour at the end of June 2008. He told them his views of the US and global economies, he previewed a market-moving speech he was about to give, and he even talked about the possibility that Lehman Brothers might blow up. Maybe it’s not so surprising that Goldman Sachs turned out to be so well positioned when Lehman did indeed do just that a few months later.

Today we learn that the Goldman meeting in Moscow was not some kind of aberration. A few weeks later, on July 28 2008, Paulson met with a who’s who of the hedge-fund world in the headquarters of Eton Park Capital Management — a fund founded by former Goldman superstar Eric Mindich.

(snip)

When we found out about the Moscow meeting, I asked how on earth Paulson thought such behavior was OK. But now I think he was downright pathological in giving inside information to his old Wall Street buddies. And the crazy thing is that we have no idea how many of these meetings there were, or how long they went on for — the only way that we ever find out about them is when reporters like Sorkin or Bloomberg’s Richard Teitelbaum manage to find a source who was in the meeting and is willing to talk about what happened.

(end snip)

Dowwright pathological.

[deminks]

12. Well, well, well, looky who else was at that meeting - Steven Rattner

Will Morning Jerk grill him tomorrow? Did he run out and act on the little tip Unkle Hank gave him?

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-29/how-henry-paulson-gave-hedge-funds-advance-word-of-2008-fannie-mae-rescue.html

[deminks]

18. Steven Rattner can't remember details of the meeting.

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2011/11/treasury-secretary-henry-paulson-tipped.html

(snip)

Brosens and Rattner both confirmed in e-mails that they had attended and said they couldn’t recall details. They didn’t respond when asked whether they traded in Fannie Mae- or Freddie Mac-related instruments after the meeting. Chanos declined to comment.

(snip)

Anyone who says they do not remember a meeting like that is a liar. Anyone who says "no comment" is indeed commenting and the possible interpretation is not pretty. So what else did Paulson say?

I would like to know who Paulson talked to outside the meeting.

(end snip)

[Stinky The Clown]

13. "Look forward, not back" is the rallying cry of the new left.

[Huey P. Long]

16. We are even told to not look at the present. Crimes going on right now

as we type. More pain ahead.

[Octafish]

17. What BFEE?

Henry Paulson, Banker to the BFEE

Thanks for the heads-up on the Bloomberg, deminks! We do live in interesting times, wot?

[Electric Monk]

19. K&R

[Blue Owl]

21. What are those silly 1%-ers up to now?

Oh, just wrecking the economy.

[taught_me_patience]

22. K&R... this is huge!

[woo me with science]

23. K&R

[annabanana]

24. There is truly no such thing as Justice in America anymore. . . . n/t

[MichiganVote]

25. Good thing he's not smokin' pot or he'd have to go jail.

[DCBob]

26. scumbag.

This is a very good reason why the rich keep getting richer. Lets hope there is some legal action taken here.

[tex-wyo-dem]

28. So when do the investigations by the DOJ begin?

Probably about as soon as the investigations into the Bushco neocon gang begin for taking the country into war based on lies. :grr:

[PufPuf23]

30. The corruption is so blatant.

Recall the warning's of possible martial law in Fall 2008 when this crime was going on?

[Festivito]

31. Is that about the time the Bush admin stopped reporting the M3?

It seemed odd at the time, why would they have done that. Some web sites reported it for a while, but, they'd move or disappear.

The real killer for me was October 2008, news sources reported that the SEC allowed banks to borrow well beyond the old ten-percent rule. The killer point is that they approved it in April 2004 and no one reported the change until a month before an election they were sure to lose
--
four YEARS later.

[riderinthestorm]

32. Despicable collusion at the top echelons. We have no chance against this. nt

(unless we advocate violence against them).

[young_at_heart]

33. Your blood will boil when you watch him in "Too Big to Fail"

At the end of the movie Hank Paulson says "Of course the banks will lend out the money". But as we all know, lending didn't happen. Banks that got taxpayer bailouts awarded their top executives nearly $1.6 billion in salaries and bonuses.

[WildNovember]

34. They are all a pack of liars. It's so disgusting to see them do it over and over

and over and never have to pay for it, never have to lose a night's sleep, never have to be jailed or lose their income. Meanwhile, for the sake of their filthy lucre people lose their homes, jobs, incomes, families split, become homeless, turn to drink or drugs...

It makes me want to cry.

[burrowowl]

35. K&R

Teapot Dome is looking smaller everyday compared to current corruption.