Alan Grayson

Alan Grayson's e-mail on Moody's warning that it might reduce the US's AAA rating, suggested that Moody's was either threatening a downgrade because it wants to get the Bush tax cuts for the rich extended, or, alternatively, that “Moody's is living in what Aristophanes called "Cloud Cuckoo Land."” He says this because Moody's is upset about the possibility that the US may go over the so-called more »

More »»

The Tea Party hates the Federal Reserve. You hear it over and over:
Tea Partiers support audit of Federal Reserve.
Tea Party could challenge Federal Reserve. more »

More »»

President Obama's Department of Justice announced last week that there would be no indictments in the collapse of AIG, an event which led to a worldwide economic collapse and cost the American taxpayer trillions. As someone who once worked for AIG I was shocked, but apparently that's how this mystery ends: Hundreds of millions of victims, smoking guns in every room, and not a perp to be found anywhere.

Yves Smith is disappointed that PriceWaterhouseCoopers, the auditors who signed off on AIG's financial claims despite mounds of disturbing evidence, escaped serious legal scrutiny. She observes that our "Potemkin" financial reform (her word) won't remove the barriers that prosecutors face in pursuing secondary parties like auditors (although I believe the Supreme Court ruling she cited only addressed civil suits.) Not only is the auditor protected, but that allows the fraudster himself to use the defense that he kept his auditor informed - kind of like Bush and Cheney using John Yoo's legal opinion to inoculate themselves from criminal prosecution.

More »»

The Senate approved an amendment from Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., that would subject the Federal Reserve's bailout operations to a one-time audit. The vote was 96 - 0 in favor of the measure. more »

More »»

Word is circulating through Capitol Hill right now that Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) has agreed to back a comprehensive audit of the Federal Reserve, paving the way for the almost certain passage of the measure. This is a major victory for serious Wall Street reform, and evidence of the mounting momentum to hold big banks and their regulators accountable. more »

More »»

Despite all of the attention heaped on the Treasury Department and the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the Federal Reserve served as the chief bank bailout engine in the U.S. economy during the Great Financial Crash of 2008, and remains the government's top bailout agency today. more »

More »»

Rep. Alan Grayson has written a letter calling for the release of all documents and materials contained on AIG's internal servers. His idea deserves support. US taxpayers rescued AIG and own a majority (79.9%) of its shares. Serious questions remain about the payment of money AIG allegedly owed "counterparties" like Goldman Sachs: Why did the US government indirectly pay 100 cents on the dollar to these counterparties for debts from a broken company? Were the amounts claimed by these counterparties legitimate or inflated? Was there an attempt to negotiate the amounts down - and if not, why not?

There are other legitimate and important areas of inquiry, too: Why were large bonuses paid out, presumably to the same people that ruined the company and cost the taxpayers billions? Was there a secret deal to ensure that these bonuses were paid? Did regulators and auditors perform their functions adequately? Rep. Grayson quotes fraud investigators Bill Black, Eliot Spitzer, and Frank Portnoy as saying that "a thousand journalistic flowers can bloom" once these materials are released. They're right.

The public has a right to know. These materials should be released.

The full text of Rep. Grayson's letter is below. more »

More »»

Let's have a frank talk about an uncomfortable subject: Progressives need to raise campaign money in order to get elected and stay in office. Sometimes that money has to come from places that progressives aren't comfortable talking about. This gritty reality has too often led to the conclusion that the Left needs to bow down to Wall Street in order to succeed. more »

More »»