Obama's War On Capital

From National Review Online

Obama’s first 100 days have occasioned a number of dispiriting moments, but yesterday’s attack on Chrysler’s bond holders represented a new low. In a speech announcing the company’s bankruptcy filing, President Obama blasted “a group of investment firms and hedge funds [that] decided to hold out for the prospect of an unjustified taxpayer-funded bailout.” That is nothing short of a lie. The consortium wasn’t holding out for a bailout. It was holding out for a bankruptcy.

The administration tried desperately to keep Chrysler out of bankruptcy court; in the process, it demonstrated exactly why that institution is so valuable. Obama’s auto task force attempted to browbeat Chrysler’s creditors into taking a terrible deal in order to spare the United Auto Workers union as much pain as possible. The large banks, which owe their continued existence to the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), caved and agreed to take a massive haircut on their secured Chrysler debt. But a group of smaller firms, calling themselves “The Committee of Chrysler Non-TARP lenders,” refused to play ball.

In a statement released yesterday, the firms pointed out that they would be shirking their fiduciary duty to their investors if they did not hold out for the best possible deal. For them, the best deal is bankruptcy. In bankruptcy court, secured debtholders (bond holders) take priority over other creditors. The administration’s plan called for secured lenders to get in line behind the UAW.

For resisting this expropriation and following the law, the non-TARP lenders were publicly denounced as vicious Benedict Arnolds by a sitting American president. “I stand with Chrysler’s employees and their families and communities,” Obama said - not “those who held out when everybody else is making sacrifices.” He stands, he said, “with the millions of Americans who own and want to buy Chrysler cars.” If millions of Americans wanted to buy Chrysler cars, the company wouldn’t need the president of the United States to be its pitchman.

Read More: Obama Declares War on Capital
Related: White House Thuggery

Freddie Mac CFO Suicide

From FOXNews.com

David Kellermann, the acting chief financial officer of mortgage giant Freddie Mac, was found dead at his home Wednesday morning in what police said was an apparent suicide.

Read More: Freddie Mac CFO Found Dead in Suicide
Related: FBI Investigates Financial Institutions
Related: The Freddie Mac Meltdown

AIG Bailout, Bonuses and Bullsh!t

The Treasury (Timothy Geithner's) Department knew about the impending AIG bonuses for months.

Lawmakers outraged at bailed-out American International Group's move to pay $165 million in executive bonuses are turning their fire on the Obama administration, asking why top officials didn't act to prevent the pay-out earlier.

"It seems like they are an administration in disarray," House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, R-Va., said Tuesday.

Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., suggested Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner does not have a handle on the AIG matter.

"We need to find out when these bonuses were approved and more than that, when they were contracted for. And who knew this?" said the ranking Republican on the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee. "Did Secretary Geithner know and look the other way?"

The senator, a harsh critic of the Treasury's bailout program known by its acronym "TARP," or Troubled Assets Relief Program, said members who voted for the program bear some blame, but he put much of the fault at Geithner's feet.

Read More...

President Obama Gets Choked Up With Phony Anger...

Update! (More BS)
After denying having anything to do with crafting language in the stimulus bill that allowed bailed-out insurance giant American International Group to keep its bonuses, Sen. Christopher Dodd admitted that he and the Treasury Department were responsible for the loophole. See Here...

Dodd blames the administration for making him do it. See Here...

There's a whole lot of Phony Anger going on out there.