Math is not my strong point. But the numbers just dont add up for me.
"As bad as the mortgage crisis has been, 94 percent of all Americans are still paying off their loans. The problem is Wall Street placed its huge bets and side bets with all of those fancy securities on the 6 percent who are not. "
"It is [credit default swaps] an insurance contract, but they've been very careful not to call it that because if it were insurance, it would be regulated. So they use a magic substitute word called a 'swap,' which by virtue of federal law is deregulated," Greenberger adds.
The problem was that if it were insurance, or called what it really is, the person who sold the policy would have to have capital reserves to be able to pay in the case the insurance was called upon or triggered. But because it was a swap, and not insurance, there was no requirement that adequate capital reserves be put to the side."
A Look At Wall Street's Shadow Market, 60 Minutes - CBS News
This stinks of Enron, and rolling blackouts. It reeks of "with intent to defraud". It smells of conspiracy.
I just didnt see enough voluntary loan restructuring by these very companies who have their hands out for taxpayer backing. They want taxpayers to invest in their toxic profits? Then sell me a package I can enter into with all the facts.
Let the bad players fall. Pick up the pieces AFTER the fall. The penalty the wise and unaffected have to pay (like the 94% of americans who will fund this bailout in spite of paying their debts) is too great a price to pay for toxic investments. So much for a free market; why is it only free during the good times of record profits?
