Tag: Toxic Paper; Subprime; CDO; MBS; Credit Default Swaps

Not long ago on Slabbed, Longshanks said the American people were in reality slaves…

And when you read the Rolling Stones article on Wall Street being completely above the law you’ll understand why you see names like Brooksley Born, Judge Jed Rakoff, AIG and crooked CEO John Mack in our archives. And sadly, I’ve concluded Longshanks is probably right, we are becoming economic slaves to financial interests and that the sheeple are too self-absorbed and ignorant to understand that basic fact. It also explains why I have little respect for sham regulators like Jim Donelon and Mike Chaney or the rest of the corporate do bitches that populate the Republican party. The Democrats aren’t any better though their rhetoric doesn’t come across as quite so clueless.

Perhaps this is why discriminating bloggers call folks like House Speaker John Boehner a dumb fuck for talking about repealing the weak financial re-regulation bill that passed last year. Meantime the Hollow One, $tung by critici$m about being too hard in Wall Street, is now genuflecting before CEOs like John Mack $pit $hining their $kin flute$.  Ain’t 2 party politics swell!

Hat tip to Editilla and Dambala.

sop

From the Cerebral Wing of the Slabbed Nation: President Obama, The Peter Principle, Crooks and Liars.

New York Times columnist Frank Rich has encapsulated literally years of posts here on Slabbed regarding the financial crash of 2008 and explains why Team Obama is regarded as an utter failure by the American public.  As a reader commented via email to me with the link, (this column is) “Something that you could have authorship of.”  Rich lays out the case both against Team Obama and Team GOP.  The bottom line is Wall Street owns the GOP 100% and the Dems about 85%. What a great choice we have as the wealthy elites continue to drain the treasury dry and run the country further in debt. Here are a few snippets:

The reasons for his failure to reap credit for any economic accomplishments are a catechism by now: the dark cloud cast by undiminished unemployment, the relentless disinformation campaign of his political opponents, and the White House’s surprising ineptitude at selling its own achievements. But the most relentless drag on a chief executive who promised change we can believe in is even more ominous. It’s the country’s fatalistic sense that the stacked economic order that gave us the Great Recession remains not just in place but more entrenched and powerful than ever.

No matter how much Obama talks about his “tough” new financial regulatory reforms or offers rote condemnations of Wall Street greed, few believe there’s been real change. That’s not just because so many have lost their jobs, their savings and their homes. It’s also because so many know that the loftiest perpetrators of this national devastation got get-out-of-jail-free cards, that too-big-to-fail banks have grown bigger and that the rich are still the only Americans getting richer.

This intractable status quo is being rubbed in our faces daily during the pre-election sprint by revelations of the latest banking industry outrage, its disregard for the rule of law as it cut every corner to process an avalanche of foreclosures. Clearly, these financial institutions have learned nothing in the few years since their contempt for fiscal and legal niceties led them to peddle these predatory mortgages (and the reckless financial “products” concocted from them) in the first place. And why should they have learned anything? They’ve often been rewarded, not punished, for bad behavior. Continue reading “From the Cerebral Wing of the Slabbed Nation: President Obama, The Peter Principle, Crooks and Liars.”

No ch

McClatchy DC’s Greg Gordon has done a bang up job dissecting Goldman Sachs’ huge profits after the bailout.  This topic represents the intersection of TARP, the Wall Street investment banks and the offshore reinsurance industry. With subprime mortgages stuffed inside insurance linked securities that were peddled both domestically and overseas, the securitized reinsurance contained a derivative based financial guarantee which was likely made good by TARP (my posts on Allstate’s Willow Re, which was not bailed out can be found here in general with my “bell cow post” here. With a tip of the hat to our good friend Mr CLS I can short cut the exhaustive written series of articles by Greg Gordon that focuses on bailed out Goldman Sachs with a recent Youtube interview he gave.

As an aside I continue to believe the collapse of this glorified pyramid scheme explains more on the recent volatility of the costs of RE than anything you’ll hear from the paid shills at their tradegroups (Ol’ Eli is so proud of his work there his Bio is access restricted). I think after a fair read of the information open-minded folks would tend to agree. Or put another way the tail risk associated with Hurricanes does change over time but not overnight. And those that could game the system made out like bandits. The Youtube embed is below the fold. Continue reading “No ch”

Wall Street paternalism and disconnect at it’s finest and on display. A Skadden partner writes about shareholder ignorance and displays plenty in the process.

I’ve written a series of posts on the disconnect from reality between the Wall Street fantasy land and Main Street, which has made modern day Wall Street possible. The problem is systemic in my opinion, from trade publications like the National Underwriter whose editor in chief believes spending yet more money on public relations is the answer to bad faith insurer claims handling, to their trade groups and shills like Robert Hartwig that try to convince the fleeced taxpaying public that insurers really didn’t screw people here after Katrina. As is his custom, however, it was Mr CLS who gives us almost more googling to do than time but in this instance a post of his on Yahoo Allstate provided me the catalyst to author this post which will illustrate again the disconnect of which I speak and it is there we begin:

sop, check out the “Winners” of the 4th Annual U.S. Securitization Awards…….

Don’t know what happened to the 5th Annual U.S. Securitization Awards, guess they cancelled and took “the 5th”.

The links he gave listing the winners was 404, no doubt broken on account of the financial crisis but undaunted I did a quick search and found them. This of course resulted in one of those patented Ah Ha moments for me but before I connect the paternalistic dots lets examine some of those that Wall Street honored back in April 2008 at the 4th annual U.S. Securitization Awards:

Deal of the Year: IHOP Corp./ Applebee’s International Securitization. Underwriter: Lehman Brothers

Deal of the Year – CMBS: Equity Office Properties Securitization Financing. Underwriters: Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs and Bank of America

Deal of the Year – CDO: Genesis CLO 2007-1 and Genesis CLO 2007-2. Underwriters: Genesis 2007-1: CDO manager: Ore Hill Partners, Underwriter: Deutsche Bank. Genesis 2007-2: CDO manager: Levine Leichtman Capital Partners, Underwriter: Deutsche Bank

ABS Firm of the Year: Goldman Sachs

Outstanding Contribution Award: The American Securitization Forum / Dept. of the Treasury

As if these ironies aren’t delicious enough the final one is over the top.

Lifetime Achievement Award Recipient: C. Thomas Kunz, Retired Head of Structured Finance, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom

We are well familiar with State Farm’s main US based law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom from their great work revising the history of the Katrina litigation planting falsehoods such as the oft repeated meme that Jim Hood used his criminal investigation of State Farm to assist Dickie Scruggs in cramming the first big settlement down State Farm’s throat (with help of ignorant bloggers such as Mississippi’s own Tom Freeland  who still repeats such propaganda on occasion despite reams of contemporaneous press reports to the contrary). Our readers will also no doubt recall I once lamented the impact of layoffs at Skadden on our daily readership earlier this year.

While reading the award winners and the Skadden connection to the toxic paper industry (makes one wonder how much work the boys at Skadden did on State Farm’s Merna Re) a recent post on Greenbackd came to mind that featured the work of Skadden partner John Carney who evidently is in charge of shilling for the firm and it is to the Greenbackd post we go next: Continue reading “Wall Street paternalism and disconnect at it’s finest and on display. A Skadden partner writes about shareholder ignorance and displays plenty in the process.”

Slabbed Daily June 1, 2009: Hurricane Season / Toxic Paper Edition

Save your life and evacuate. Or stay to make certain your wind insurance pays. Decisions decisions….

Its that time of the year – the beginning of another Hurricane season complete with advance news stories why our insurance rates need to rise yet again. Some evac stories always make it to the mix and it is there we start with this Melissa Scallan Sun Herald story:

Womack and other state officials are encouraging residents to go north, not east or west and to leave by alternate rather than primary routes, such as U.S. 49.

Some of the new and less-traveled routes include Mississippi 605 and Mississippi 67, which tie into each other and lead to U.S. 49. Wayne Brown, Southern District transportation commissioner for the state Department of Transportation, encourages residents to take highways such as Mississippi 15, 57, 63 and 29.

“If people stick to those, in my opinion, they’ll have much less traffic to deal with,” Brown said.

The state has agreed again this year to allow south Louisiana residents to use Mississippi interstates to evacuate.

If asked by Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, Mississippi will contraflow interstates 55 and 59, which means traffic in all lanes will flow north.

On I-55 contraflow will end just south of Brookhaven. On I-59 it will end just south of Hattiesburg.

Some exits will be open so motorists can get gas and food, Brown said, but those could be closed intermittently.

“We’re going to let them get off, but if that stop becomes congested we’ll close the exit,” he said.

Bob Chapman, emergency services manager for MDOT, said contraflow is one reason department officials encourage Mississippi residents to leave as early as they can.

“We can’t contraflow U.S. 49 for our residents because there are too many access points,” he said.

“The main emphasis is to evacuate early and go where you want to go.”

Next up is the obligatory Insurance (Mis) Infortmation Institute’s annual news plant explaining that costly Hurricanes are the reason rates are so expensive. What the story fails to mention is that insurers are paying out less in claims as a percenatge of their revenues than ever thus losses can’t be the true reason rates are sky high, coverage is scarce despite III’s paid shill Robert Hartwig’s protestations to the contrary. We pick up the AP story as published by the Houston Chronicle (h/t Mrs Sop): Continue reading “Slabbed Daily June 1, 2009: Hurricane Season / Toxic Paper Edition”

First Obama F*cked us, now the unkindest cut of ALL.

Yep, P&C Insurers including Allstate are now bellied up to the taxpayer TARP trough.

sop

BREAKING: TARP IG Opens AIG Bank Payments Probe

Zero Hedge  broke the story, we immediately recognized its importance and now the TARP Inspector General wants a looksie. Once again leadership on making certain the taxpayers are protected as much as possible is found in the House of Representatives.  Bloomberg has the story: (h/t Zero Hedge)

The Treasury’s chief watchdog for the U.S. financial rescue program is probing whether American International Group Inc. paid more than necessary to banks including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. after the insurer’s bailout.

Neil Barofsky, special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, opened an audit last week into whether there were attempts made by New York-based AIG or the government to reduce the payments, according to an April 3 letter to Representative Elijah Cummings. The Maryland Democrat had requested the probe last month along with 26 other members of Congress.

Lawmakers, frustrated with the cost of an AIG bailout that has expanded three times, have asked why about $50 billion was paid after the initial September rescue to banks that bought credit-default swaps from the firm. The audit will reveal who made “critical decisions” regarding the payments and provide an explanation for the actions, Barofsky said.

“To what extent did AIG pay counterparty claims at 100 percent of face value and was any attempt made to renegotiate and close out these claims with ‘haircuts?’” Barofsky wrote. “Questions concerning whether AIG paid more than necessary to counterparties and whether Treasury adequately monitored such payments are clearly relevant.” Continue reading “BREAKING: TARP IG Opens AIG Bank Payments Probe”

Moral Hazard? Slabbed wipes our a$$ with Moral Hazard (Part 1)

Friday afternoon I decided to take on the broad topic of Moral Hazard, the concept for which this blog is unpinned. I collected links and research and then promptly experienced writers block for which even my gratuitous bashing of Rossie could not break. Then as per normal (and in true Talebesque fashion) Russell serendipitously emails me a link that ties things together. This becomes part 1 because there is no way I can tackle the topic in one post and do it justice. The bonus is I get to indulge a personal interest in Game Theory and of course poke some fun at what one observer calls moral hazard lite which represents the intersection of politics with the calamity that has shaken our banking system to its core. Let’s start with a quick definition of Moral Hazard:

Moral hazard is the prospect that a party insulated from risk may behave differently from the way it would behave if it were fully exposed to the risk. Moral hazard arises because an individual or institution does not bear the full consequences of its actions, and therefore has a tendency to act less carefully than it otherwise would, leaving another party to bear some responsibility for the consequences of those actions.

How does this “different behavior” that results from having no ri$k play out in the financial markets? We have a case study in progress commonly known as the bailout that provides some clues. Russell knows me as an intuitive trader when it comes to individual issues and I’ve been casually telling people this current rally in the financial services sector is an illusion in respects. We’ll have to retest our lows and that could happen as many as three times between now and Q4. Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge gives us a 2009 example to the old Wall Street saying, “Sell in May and go away” as he details why banks as a whole were surprisingly profitable the past two months. Hopefully this will stick with us when the bank execs collect their bonuses from these “results” down the road. Here are some snippets from the Zero Hedge exclusive: AIG was responsible for the bank’s January and February profitability:

Zero Hedge is rarely speechless, but after receiving this email from a correlation desk trader, we simply had to hold a moment of silence for the phenomenal scam that continues unabated in the financial markets, and now has the full oversight and blessing of the U.S. government, which in turns keeps on duping U.S. taxpayers into believing everything is good. Continue reading “Moral Hazard? Slabbed wipes our a$$ with Moral Hazard (Part 1)”

Conseco hit with the ol’ Going Concern. Bankruptcy virtually assured.

CPAs know “going concern” as they are required to assess the concept in every audit. Hitting your client with the language is also the kiss of death.

Et tu, Brute?

Reuters has the story:

Conseco Inc, a Midwestern U.S. life and accident insurer, warned of a possible default under its credit facility if auditors raised doubts over its ability to continue as a going concern, sending shares down as much as 60 percent to its all time low. Continue reading “Conseco hit with the ol’ Going Concern. Bankruptcy virtually assured.”