Chamblee54

This content was originally published June 24, 2009. … Neda Soltan was killed during disturbances following a contested election in Iran. “The Iranian authorities have ordered the family of Neda Agha Soltan out of their Tehran home after shocking images of her death were circulated around the world. Neighbours said that her family no longer lives in the four-floor apartment building on Meshkini Street, in eastern Tehran, having been forced to move since she was killed. The police did not hand the body back to her family, her funeral was cancelled, she was buried without letting her family know and the government banned mourning ceremonies at mosques” …
Meanwhile, a few hundred kilometers away, a funeral was allowed to take place. They had a visitor. “Up to 80 people have been killed after missiles were fired from a US “drone” at the funeral of a suspected Taliban commander of the Pakistani Taliban in South Waziristan, Pakistan officials have said.” The United States is at war with Pakistan in all but name. This is a nation of over 100 million moslems, with nuclear weapons. If we had listened to “neocons” and extremist Israelis, we would be at war with Iran now. Those people in the streets would be fighting us.
This content was originally published June 21, 2009. … Quoting Matt Taibbi … “Hank Paulson is one of the nameless men who helped to make the dollar worthless. He was the Secretary of the Treasury under George W. Bush. Before that, he was Chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs. In 2004, Paulson played a key role in the relaxation of certain rules governing banks. “he called up SEC director William Donaldson in 2004 and quietly arranged to get the state to drop capital requirements for the country’s top five investment banks?… Paulson met with Donaldson and got the rules changed” …
… “Goldman and four other banks no longer had to abide by the old restrictions that forced banks to actually have a dollar or two on hand for every ten or so they lent out. Bear Stearns in just a few years had a debt-to-equity ration of 33-1! Lehman’s went to 32-1.” The big banks were lending money to just about anyone who wanted it. So much capital was coming on the market, it was a struggle to lend it all out. The standards, especially for home loans, went down to almost nothing. These loans were packaged and resold, in the form of securities backed by these almost fraudulent loans.”
From another Matt Taibbi article … “So some Dutch teachers’ union that a year before was buying ultra-safe U.S. Treasury bonds in 2006 runs into a Goldman salesman who offers them a different, “just as safe” AAA-rated investment that, at the moment anyway, just happens to be earning a much higher return than treasuries. Next thing you know, a bunch of teachers in Holland are betting their retirement nest eggs on a bunch of meth addicted “homeowners” in Texas and Arizona.” “Alt-A mortgages are characterized, mainly, by crappy documentation and lack of equity: no income verification, no asset verification, little-to-no cash down” …
… “These crap/sham mortgages, a lot of them adjustable-rate deals with teaser rates that featured sudden rate hikes two or three years after closing, they would never have been possible had not someone devised a method for selling them off to secondary buyers.” … “This isn’t really commerce, but much more like organized crime: it was a gigantic fraud perpetrated on the economy that wouldn’t have been possible without accomplices in the ratings agencies and regulators willing to turn a blind eye. Imagine a meat company that bred ten billion rats, fattened them on trash and sewage, ground their bodies into chuck, and then sold it all as grade-A ground beef” …
… Neal Boortz blamed the sub prime mortgage crisis on the government pressuring lenders to give loans to less qualified buyers. I was listening one day when an “expert” was discussing the mortgage crisis. Neeyull mentioned that Government pressure led to loaning money to less qualified people. The expert said that was part of it, but the real problem was the flood of capital available to lend. The banks were under pressure to loan the money out as quickly as possible, and not to be too picky about qualifications. … Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. The social media picture is “Corporal Rutherford Hayes Woolley, Co. H, 20th Alabama Infantry Regiment. … Photograph shows identified soldier, who was captured in July 1863 at Vicksburg, Mississippi.”