Steve Rattner Car Czar: Obama Squandered Billions

Former Car Czar Steven Rattner left the Obama administration within five months of signing on. He walked out with little respect for anyone in Obama's inner circle, including Rahm Emanuel and Tim Geithner, according to snippets from his coming tell-all book. But that was likely not the reason for leaving the Treasury. Rattner was in trouble with the New York Attorney General. Maybe the administration wanted him to leave, but official statements of his departure did not lend us to believe that to be the case. While the book is stirring political waters, there is little-trumpeted news of Rattner  claiming Obama's transition team refused to work with Bush advisers - advice that would have saved taxpayers "billions of dollars." That's big news, but the press only slightly mentions this inconvenient bombshell.

Steve Rattner

The accusation of squandering billions trillons is so familiar to the administration, they aren't even bothering to refute the charge. They are, however, upset, that Rahm Emanuel has been accused of saying "f*** the UAW." The administration is frantically scrambling to deny that Rahm would EVER say such a terrible thing about a union member. Not only did he not say it, he didn't think it either, is the White House position. According to the White House "Rahm tirelessly defended and advocated on behalf of the auto workers," all-the-while working to f*** the rest of us.

Rattner admits that he had absolutely no background or interest in the auto industry when he was offered the job as Obama Car Czar. Rattner's background is in journalism (he was a New York Times reporter), communications, investment banking. In Spring 2009, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg gave Rattner and Quadrangle Group (which Rattner co-founded) his $16 billion "blind trust" to manage while Bloomberg considered running for U.S. president. Rattner continued in that capacity even as he entered the Treasury as Car Czar.

Rattner and the Quadrangle Group are now in hot water with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for a pay-to-play scheme. The Quadrangle Group and Rattner separated before he left the Treasury. Cronyism gone wrong - billions gone wrong. Nothing unusual coming from the U.S. Treasury or the White House.

All the News We Need to Know to Remember November

The following Drudge headlines are all the news we need to know to Remember November.

Remember November

Drudge Report

UNEMPLOYMENT JUMPS TO 9.6%...

Economy LOST 283,000 jobs during 'Recovery Summer' months...

NPR: 'Recovery Summer' Ends With Economic Pothole...

Labor Sec. Declares: 'There are jobs out there'...

TREASURY HEAD RUSHES BACK FROM VACATION; AIDES SEARCH FOR OTHER JOBS PACKAGE...

120 Days to Go Until Largest Tax Hikes in History...

President Claims Job Creation; Doesn't Mention Net Job Loss of 54K...

HE NEEDS A VACATION: OBAMA TO CAMP DAVID...

Taxpayers to face initial loss on GM IPO; Treasury to sell first shares below break-even...


Linked by MindNumbedRobot - Thank You!

Geithner: I Never Had a Real Job: Geithner Only Worked for Government

We have an entire administration that doesn't know what it is to keep the bottom line "black," meet a payroll, produce a product or service and work without a fail safe like tenure or seniority. Tim Geithner, Obama's Treasury Secretary tells us he "never had a real job."

Tim Geithner

From the Wall Street Journal:

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is haunted by the misperception that he used to work on Wall Street.

"I find that the charge that -- the myth that I worked in Wall Street all my life, somewhat amusing," Geithner said on CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS." "But it is part of a narrative that hardened. People came to view the judgments we were making through the prism of a myth...it's actually very damaging. It's completely false, of course, and it, you know, should have been corrected a long time ago."

Geithner has worked in government his whole life. Before becoming Treasury secretary, he was president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which is a government job but is closely associated with Wall Street. The New York Fed president is selected by a board of private sector bankers and other private sector officials but has to be approved by the Federal Reserve Board in Washington. Almost all of the New York Fed's profits get turned over to the u.S. government.

"What I say is the I never had a real job," Geithner jokes

 H/T The Lonely Conservative"

Robert Gibbs Jason Mattera on Constitutionality: Steny Hoyer and Jason Mattera on Tax Cheats

Two videos. In the first, Robert Gibbs has an encounter with a young conservative reporter, Jason Mattera at Jason Mattera.com. Gibbs tries to compare approval of Bush tax cuts with passing the mammoth health care monstrosity. Great example of Liberal math: Give people more money in their pay checks, help businesses make their payroll, and it's the equivalent of snatching liberty and privacy out of the hands of parents and grandparents,  and hijacking the futures of coming generations with health care mandates, against the will of the people

[Gibbs] The spending in health care is less than the $1.3 trillion Bush health cut.

[Mattera] Do you ever feel dirty inside defending this administration's deceits and deceptions?

In the second video Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD), House Majority Leader meets Jason Mattera. A snippet:

"How do you have the stones to tax Americans for not purchasing healh care when you have tax cheat Charlie Rangel writing legislation and tax cheat Tim Geithner enforcing it? You left-wingers have made hypocrisy an art form."

Great job Jason. Talk about stones! Jason has written a book: Obama Zombies: How the Liberal Machine Brainwashed my Generation. Buy it at JasonMattera.com

Linked by The Lonely Conservative - Thank you Karen!






Robert Gibbs Meets Jason Mattera on Health Care (video)
Steny Hoyer meets Jason Mattera on Tax Cheats (video)

Tim Geithner Knew About Lehman Accounting Gimmicks? $50B Lehman Accounting Shuffle

U.S. Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner, was president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank at the same time Lehman-Brothers was using financial engineering (accounting gimmicks) to shuffle $50B in toxic assets off its books, before collapsing in September 2008. There is little doubt Geithner had to know, concealed the facts and failed to take appropriate action.

New York Federal Reserve Bank

No coincidence that the New York Times and Huffington Post fail to cite the Fed's, and Tim Geithner's, lack of action made clear from the 2200 page report.

Naked Capitalism takes a look at a new examiner's report into how and why Lehman failed, showing Tim Geithner is likely complicit in cover-up:

It also emerges that the NY Fed, and thus Timothy Geithner, were at a minimum massively derelict in the performance of their duties, and may well be culpable in aiding and abetting Lehman in accounting fraud and Sarbox violations.

We need to demand an immediate release of the emails, phone records, and meeting notes from the NY Fed and key Lehman principals regarding the NY Fed's review of Lehman's solvency. If, as things appear now, Lehman was allowed by the Fed's inaction to remain in business, when the Fed should have insisted on a wind-down (and the failed Barclay's said this was not infeasible: even an orderly bankruptcy would have been preferred....) the NY Fed at a minimum helped perpetuate a fraud on investors and counterparties.

Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism updated his post at 3 AM this morning after reading pertinent sections of the report.

Every page is stunning...the nonsense is mile high. Lehman had been doing this sort of things since 2001. No US law firm would give them cover via an opinion letter for their phony repo accounting...

So, let's get busy demanding release of items that will likely incriminate Tim Geithner, and the Federal Reserve.

Read it all at Naked Capitalism.

Others talking about Tim Geithner's culpability in the Lehman collapse:
LOLFed
Jr Deputy Accountant
The Daily Caller