Nobody Could Have Predicted

In today’s episode of NCHP, we once again find the Bush administration hard at work hiding shit that we’re supposed to know about:

The Treasury Department has hired three outside firms this week to help administer its $700 billion, taxpayer-funded bailout of troubled banks. But some key details of those contracts remain a mystery.

The agreements with Bank of New York Mellon Corp. and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP that the Treasury Department posted on its web site each had blacked-out paragraphs in the sections dealing with compensation.

Keep in mind, fellow Stinquers, that the costs of the accountants, law firms, and bankers that will be cleaning up after the Bush administration’s administration of our economy will be over and above what cash we’re injecting into the banks and insurance companies we now own.

More on this latest outrage after the jump.

Nobody could have predicted that the Bush administration would be sneaky and secretive:

When the Treasury Department’s bailout czar provided an update this week on the government’s $700 billion plan to rescue troubled financial institutions, he vowed that it would be an “open and transparent program with appropriate oversight.”

The next day, the Treasury Department put out an announcement about a major bailout-related contract with Bank of New York Mellon Corp. that [also] fell short in the transparency department.

C’mon, really?

The copy of the agreement that was made public had blacked-out paragraphs in the section covering Bank of New York Mellon’s compensation. If the Treasury Department is unwilling to disclose the particulars of that – or even the general outline of the compensation scheme — that raises questions about how it will treat disclosure of other bailout transactions.

Once again I am tempted to grab a pitchfork and a torch and take to the streets.  Fucking rapist banker fucks.

Comments

[LiberalRevolt]

Pass this around: http://www.liberalrevolt.com/article/signs-of-dementia-in-mccain

[actor212]

In fairness, Freude, it's a little hard to list "unlimited pay per view porn on Time Warner Cable, plus an Audi TT Roadster"...

[tata]

Perhaps there's an alternate usage of "transparency" that means its exact opposite.

[electrolite]

Well of course it was always a given that We The People were going to get the chainsaw up the ass-- er, be handed the bill for all this mess. Hank and the gang couldn't possibly be expected to actually give up one of their Bentleys or a yacht or two, could they?

I've said it before and I'll say it again, it really is time to haul the guillotine out of storage.

[Steve Bates]

Hey, I've got a pitchfork. No, wait; I don't... but I've got a pitch pipe and a tuning fork. If I glued them together, they'd probably be about as effective as a real pitchfork in this situation... i.e., not at all. I think we're probably fucked.

(Thanks for the link to bailoutsleuth.)

[electrolite]

Well of course it was always a given that We The People were going to get the chainsaw up the ass-- er, be handed the bill for all this mess. Hank and the gang couldn't possibly be expected to actually give up one of their Bentleys or a yacht or two, could they?

I've said it before and I'll say it again, it really is time to haul the guillotine out of storage.

[electrolite]

And another thing. I used to work for American General, which got gobbled up by AIG in a hostile takover right after Enron collapsed. As you might expect, the layoffs began before the ink was even dry. Two weeks before, though, AIG hosted a huge $2,500 a plate dinner on the corporate grounds--and yes, Pappy and Babs Bush were there (along with Ken Lay) to celebrate this "exciting" new "direction" for the company. All of us commoners were ordered to leave two hours early, presumably so the gilded eyeballs of the attendees wouldn't have to endure the horror of actually seeing the working class. Just like the victims of Enron, thousands of people lost good jobs to these high-flying scum and their benefactors on Wall Street. Where all this is going, and why I'm saying it is that, when I talk about bringing out the guillotine, I really mean it. Seeing these King of the World, Gordon Gekko-type's heads on stakes? Sign me up.