Like Conspiracy Theories, You Love this: The NY Fed, Goldman & The AIG Cover-Up
If there was ever a good time to make some dodgy coin, whilst everyone is distracted by financial panic was probably it. Pulling it off right in front of everyones’ noses whilst they are convinced you are doing something for them is probably the oldest trick in the book; or as Keyser Soze put it, “The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world that he didn’t exist.” Last year’s financial panic doubtless gave many an opportunist the …
If there was ever a good time to make some dodgy coin, whilst everyone is distracted by financial panic was probably it. Pulling it off right in front of everyones’ noses whilst they are convinced you are doing something for them is probably the oldest trick in the book; or as Keyser Soze put it, “The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world that he didn’t exist.”
Last year’s financial panic doubtless gave many an opportunist the chance of a lifetime. Some will have taken it within the confines of legislation, others (as we are seeing more and more evidence of) will have thrown caution to the wind hoping that indiscretions would be buried in the chaos or just ignored by a disbelieving public.
There are several big events that took place during the crisis period in Autumn last year which left a raft of whys that need answering. Clusterstock has pieced together a few:
Why did the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY), whose Chairman was Stephen Friedman (a Goldman Sachs board member who resigned from the New York Fed earlier this year when it was revealed that he had made $5 million by purchasing shares in GS with the knowledge that AIG would be paying counterparties at par and that Goldman would be getting a $13 billion windfall — when no one else had this information) and whose President was none other than current Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, why did this New York Fed choose to pay AIG’s counterparties 100 cents on the dollar when AIG itself had been negotiating for steep haircuts with claimants, AND why did they then pressure AIG executives to keep quiet about the decision even discouraging AIG from disclosing the ‘par-payments’ to its shareholders in required SEC filings?
Click here for some answers.
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