Friday, December 9, 2011

“A $200K Mortgage for $2 a Month”

"I am not a good American...I prefer to form my own opinions" - George Carlin

My recent communication with my man, Alan Grayson:

Dear JJ,

You saw that title, “A $200K Mortgage for $2 a Month,” and maybe you thought, “that looks like spam.”

No. It’s real.

And then maybe you thought, “a $200,000 mortgage? For only $2 each month? That sounds impossible.”


Well, it is possible. It’s just not possible for you.

For Bank of America, yes. For Citigroup, yes. For Wells Fargo, yes.

For you, no.

The GAO’s main report on its audit of the Federal Reserve exposed who received the trillions and trillions of dollars in Fed bailouts. But the GAO report wasn’t very specific about the terms of those bailouts. For that, we have the Freedom of Information Act records obtained by Bloomberg News, which Bloomberg wrote about last week. Among other things, Bloomberg reported that the Fed lent out this cash to Wall Street at rates “as low as 0.01 percent.

To such worthy recipients as Bear Stearns, AIG, the Royal Bank of Scotland, etc., etc.

Well, it could have been worse. The Fed could have just dumped the money into a wood chipper.

If you do that math, you’ll see that when the Fed gave Citigroup the money for a $200,000 mortgage, at 0.01 percent, Citigroup had to pay less than $2 each month for that money.

Citigroup then lent that money to you – if it deigned to lend you anything – for maybe $1,000 a month, maybe more.

And that $40,000 credit card balance? Citigroup paid the Fed less than a dollar a month for that money. And you paid $1,000.

Citigroup pays $1. You pay $1,000. You see how that works?

Citigroup fell into such a deep hole that it had to borrow a “term-adjusted” $58,000,000,000 from the Fed, according to Page 132 of the GAO’s audit report.

And what would you get from the Fed, if you fell into a deep hole? Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zip. Diddly-squat. Zero.

You wouldn’t get jack.

If you lose your home, you can sleep in your car. If you lose your car, you can sleep under a bridge. Unless, of course, you’re a Wall Street banker.

Two hundred and thirteen years ago, there was a Member of Congress who said: “Millions for defense, but not one penny for tribute.” Now we have a government that says: “Trillions for Wall Street, but not one penny for you.”

That’s our government. Unless we change it.

Courage,

Alan Grayson

Somebody needs to go to jail...no, a whole lot of somebodies need to go to jail. Not going to happen, you say? Can you spell T A R  and F E A T H E R?

13 comments:

Joe "Truth 101" Kelly said...

When I was trying to make a go of my business years ago other business people I knew were telling me if I could get money for 7% get all I could get.

I shoulda been a banker I guess.

Mr. Charleston said...

First thingy: Money would have been better used as mulch from the chipper than its eventual use.

Second thingy: The other half of the story is that the banks borrowed that cash at 0.01% interest and then actually LENT IT BACK to the Feds at 3 fucking percent interest!!

Ain't it great?

yellowdoggranny said...

as cheech and chong would say:
"Bend over bendejo."..

Punch said...

fuck 'em

jadedj said...

Truth101---From what I've read of your posts, you are an intelligent and compassionate man. The second trait alone, disqualified you from becoming a banker.

Mr. C---Yes indeedy. I believe that is called robbing peter to rob peter...or, hold your peter, we are going to rob you twice.

YD G---Yes, except in this case it is in the past tense...we've been bent over..and over...and over.

Punch---Personally I prefer tar and feather.

Harlequin said...

grayson is a god.

tar and feather sounds good to me, too.

these details are the frightening reminder( as if one was needed) of the unfathomable disparity between people who will never be out of dept and people who will never be accountable for it. amazing....

Ol'Buzzard said...

Sounds like Republican version of heaven.
the Ol'Buzzard

Chimp said...

Bring back the guillotine!!! Let the heads start rolling...

jadedj said...

Harlequin---The beat goes on.

Ol'B---Yep. They sure as hell are trying to get that camel through the needle hole, it seems.

Chimp---Perhaps a dull one.

Tom Harper said...

To paraphrase the final scene from Fargo: "ah, and that would be your seven trillion dollars in the wood chipper."

jadedj said...

Tom---Incredulous, isn't it.

Kyle Leach said...

Brilliant expose JJ.

jadedj said...

Kyle---How are you?

It is indeed brilliant, except I can't take credit for it. This was an email from the Alan Grayson committee to re-elect him. I thought it was so well explained that I posted it. Alas.