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h24ever: That is what happens to a country when the majority gets to live here for free, with regards to Federal Income Taxes.
Heck that same majority is quite pleased to see the Federal Government raise taxes on the minority that actually pays this coutry's bills, as they (the majority) are exempt and only benefit from the additional wealth confiscation. While I participated and was pleased to see TEApartyDay come about, I fear the silent majority haven finally gotten up off their couches may be too late, as they may well no longer be the majority.
Regards,
LG
4Godnwv: That would be "fascist path"...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/apr/24/usa.comment
Regards,
LG
extelecom: She will not get my vote, as she has supported too much of the bailout spending. John Cornyn has the same issues...sigh!
We need a third party, one for the folks that actually pay this country's bills!
Ron Paul on secession...
http://thechartologist.com/video.html
LG
Peter Schiff Video Blog 4/20...
http://thechartologist.com/video.html
Regards,
LG
EVEN IN THEIR SIXTIES THEY ARE STILL GREAT...
http://www.thechartologist.com/video.html
Regards,
LG
EVEN IN THEIR SIXTIES THEY ARE STILL GREAT...
http://www.thechartologist.com/video.html
Regards,
LG
ksquared: The faces we are seeing in the TEApartyDay crowd are the faces of folks that actually pay this country's bills, not the usual faces we demonstrating the ones that alway demand more but paying nothing.
Off to parade my sign...
Regards,
LG
Watching Fox Business News, as they cover the various TEAparties, I am struck by the skin color of the vast majority of participants....THEY ARE WHITE.
Even in Atlanta....THEY ARE WHITE.
Can it be the couch potatoes, the silent majority is finally getting up off their couches? I just hope it is not to late.
http://thechartologist.com/video.html
Signing off now, as I am off to participate...
Regards,
LG
PS: I particularly liked one of the signs I saw in Atlanta,
Barney Franks
Bernie Madoff
What is the difference?
National TEA Party Day
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Participate at your local party
BE THERE
www.TEApartyday.com
http://thechartologist.com/video.html
Regards,
LG
National TEA Party Day
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Participate at your local party
BE THERE
www.TEApartyday.com
http://thechartologist.com/video.html
Regards,
LG
basserdan: Another excellent link...
THINK LIKE A CRIMINAL
LG
Amos: I suppose, but then it seems to be dating you as well...gg
And romance with an era is doable, but just not for "yours truly" in this case...
LG
NASARAVI: I thought his name was Amos not Andy?
LG
snootmagruder: Right you are (chart below on Central Time)...gg
Regards,
LG
BR549: Maybe I should change my alias to BU2-6128...gg
LG
BR549: Yep, picken and grin'en...gg
LG
BR549: Maybe, I read that GM may keep that brand alive, if GM survives.
Does that come with a Jr Samples 30 day warranty, hehaw, hehaw, hehaw...gg
LG
BR549: Common Sense....so true
Buy the way, how is the used car business doing?...gg
LG
dhwco: Doesn't this mean if T-Mobile wins, share holders of record may have to pony up the money?
DEMAND FOR A JURY TRIAL
15. T-Mobile demands a trial by jury on all issues so triable.
PRAYER FOR RELIEF FOR THESE REASONS, T-Mobile respectfully requests that this Court enter judgment in its favor and grant the following relief:
a. An order declaring that Plaintiffs take nothing from T-Mobile on the claims asserted in the Amended Complaint;
b. A declaration that T-Mobile does not infringe any valid and enforceable claim of the ‘923 patent;
c. A declaration that the ‘923 patent is invalid and/or unenforceable;
d. Judgment against Plaintiffs in favor of T-Mobile;
e. Dismissal of the Amended Complaint with prejudice;
f. An order declaring that this is an exceptional case under 35 U.S.C. § 285;
g. An award to T-Mobile of its costs, expenses, and reasonable attorney fees order under 35 U.S.C. § 285 and all other applicable statutes, rules, and common law; and
h. Any such other relief as the Court may deem appropriate and just under the circumstances.
Dated: April 6, 2009 Respectfully submitted,
/s/ Benjamin Hershkowitz Josh A. Krevitt, New York Bar No. 2568228 Lead Attorney Benjamin Hershkowitz, N.Y. Bar No. 2600559 Richard Koehl, N.Y. Bar No. 4193694 GIBSON, DUNN & CRUTCHER LLP 200 Park Avenue New York, New York 10166 Telephone: (212) 351-4000
LG
benzdeleror2: Yes, that was a bow...
Let's see if Michelle Obama starts a new fashion trend in the US...
LG
gtober: Amen...
LG
dhwco: So, what's happening with the T-Mobile lawsuit. Did T-Mobile ever respond?
Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives...gg
LG
snootmagruder: as with multiple time frames you can basically keep looking until you see what you want to see and perhaps not the correct "read"
Bias can affect any method that is not completely mechanical. I've yet to see any black box mechanical method hold up.
No doubt about it, MTFA takes some time and effort to learn and continued effort to use regularly. Most practitioners using MTFA are off the path, using a mutated methodology...
LG
basserdan: Another dose of "common sense", but our political elite seem devoid of "common sense".
Common sense, is just not very common...
LG
gtober: U.S. Taxpayers Risk $9.7 Trillion on Bailout Programs
By Mark Pittman and Bob Ivry
Feb. 9 (Bloomberg) -- The stimulus package the U.S. Congress is completing would raise the government’s commitment to solving the financial crisis to $9.7 trillion, enough to pay off more than 90 percent of the nation’s home mortgages.
The Federal Reserve, Treasury Department and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation have lent or spent almost $3 trillion over the past two years and pledged up to $5.7 trillion more. The Senate is to vote this week on an economic-stimulus measure of at least $780 billion. It would need to be reconciled with an $819 billion plan the House approved last month.
Only the stimulus bill to be approved this week, the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program passed four months ago and $168 billion in tax cuts and rebates enacted in 2008 have been voted on by lawmakers. The remaining $8 trillion is in lending programs and guarantees, almost all under the Fed and FDIC. Recipients’ names have not been disclosed.
“We’ve seen money go out the back door of this government unlike any time in the history of our country,” Senator Byron Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat, said on the Senate floor Feb. 3. “Nobody knows what went out of the Federal Reserve Board, to whom and for what purpose. How much from the FDIC? How much from TARP? When? Why?”
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=washingtonstory&sid=aGq2B3XeGKok
Regards,
LG
PS: Pray tell what 2010 brings...gg
gtober: $78.8 Trillion; United States Debt Obligations exceed world GDP
Joe: How about this...
In Fiscal Year 2008, the U. S. Government spent $412 Billion of your money on interest payments* to the holders of the National Debt. Compare that to NASA at $15 Billion, Education at $61 Billion, and Department of Transportation at $56 Billion. -- As of 28 February 2009, the total interest spent so far this fiscal year is $148 Billion.
LG
hunkerdown: Relax, it gets worse...sigh!
Effects
Single parent families are at a higher risk of poverty than couple families, and on average single mothers have poorer health than couple mothers [2].
Single parenting is strongly associated with an increased risk of a number of negative social, behavioral and emotional outcomes for children. However while the association is strong, on balance the effect size and the actual numbers affected are modest. Most children from single parent families do well. Many factors influence how children develop in single-parent families: the parent's age, education level, and occupation; the family's income, and the family's support network of friends and extended family members (including the non-resident parent, if available). Disadvantages in these factors that often accompany single parenting appear to cause most of this association rather than single parenting itself [13] [14].
Shocking headlines do get published; for example a 2003 Swedish study, stated that those living with a single parent were about three times more likely to kill themselves or end up in the hospital after an attempted suicide by the age of 26 than children living with two parents, however this only happened to 2.2 percent of girls and 1 percent of boys [15]. While such a finding is concerning, clearly the vast majority of the children of single parents do not kill themselves and are underrepresented.
A variety of viewpoints do exist, with different readings of the research possible. The Institute for the Study of Civil Society reports that children of single parents, after controlling for other variables like family income, are more likely to have problems [16]. There are impacts of sole parenting on children, however the weight of the evidence does not appear to support a view that sole parents are a major cause of societal ills and are doing irreparable damage to their children [14].
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_parent
Joe: Also just as interesting...
U.S. births break record; 40% out-of-wedlock
http://www.japantoday.com/category/world/view/us-births-break-record-40-out-of-wedlock
Taxpayers Foot Bill For Roughly 300,000 Children Born Into Citizenship When Their Parents Are Illegal
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/04/07/eveningnews/main4000401.shtml
LG
Geithner is speaking this morning to the Council on Foreign Relations. He said "as a nation we have borrowed too much".
WRONG....as a Government it has spent and borrowed to much.
I've been for a balanced budget since I've been old enough to vote. First started by the Democrats and then imitated to a lesser degree by the GOP, our government just can't stop buying votes and catering to special interests with our tax dollars....sigh!
I AM SICK AND TIRED OF THESE IDIOTS TELLING ME I SHARE IN THE BLAME. HELL, I'VE BEEN ONE OF THE FOLKS THEY'VE FORCED TO PAY FOR ALL OF THEIR MADNESS AND FOR ALL THE IRRESPONSIBILITY’S OF OTHERS...
LG
4Godnwv: Wow that was a good piece. I had to do a double take at the author as Pat's been spending way too much time on MSNBC (left wing zealot central) the last few years...
LG
trade2much: Well I've gone into to detail several times in years past on my suggestions regarding a federal consumption tax.
Food, health care and a basis amount for shelter (structure, heating, cooling and water) would be exempt.
All the federal taxes tacked on as fees for telephone service, energy, gasoline, water and sewer, etc. would go as well.
This is the fairest way to tax. Everyone has a choice as to what to buy, knowing up front they are going to have to pay the tax on that 100K Mercedes rather than buy that 10K Kia.
LG
Rangle up arguing to tax TARP bonuses 90%. I say let us tax presidential and congressional pay at 100% until those assholes do away with the income, cap gains, death, gift, etc., tax and enact a consumption tax and only a consumption tax. Then balance the budget based on that consumption tax revenue. Everyone pays the consumption tax at the same rate, no exceptions...
LG
trade2much: I have always felt those retention bonuses were paid for exactly the reason Liddy explained.
Of course Liddy did the right thing and his rational is easily understandable, but trying to enlighten a liberal Congress using "common sense" is as useful as pissing on a forest fire.
However, Liddy made a mistake asking for the bonuses to be returned.
Regards,
LG
PS: The market just provided a good shorting op...
As a result of the AIG bitch slapping by Congress regarding the bonuses, AIG will most likely lose the very folks needed to continue to wind down the very group still trying to wind down a remaining 1.6 trillion plus in troubled transactions exposure.
The stupidity of our elected officials seems to have no boundaries as they seem hell bent on wrecking any chance that AIG under the leadership of Liddy, will be able to wind down that exposure. If those that received their bonuses return them along with their resignations, chances of winding down that 1.6 trillion in bad transactions exposure becomes bleak. As AIG goes down the drain, so does all those billions in tax payer funding.
The power hungry zealots running our country have proven they can't run it, now the idiots have taken on the task of running our financial system. These companies should have been allowed to fail. There should not have been any bailouts. The bad decisions of our elected politicians compounds daily.
That idiot Steven Lynch is bitch slapping Liddy as I type...sigh!
Frustrated and very worried for our Nation...
LG
dhwco: Hard to believe that patent ownership was not properly vetted, "before" proceeding with the lawsuit.
You must be far more important than I gave you credit for being.
LOL...not I, it must be "that" person making inquires using my moniker without permission. Now it's back to the bleachers, to watch this NEVER ENDING soap opera. Next episode please...gg
LG
charlie-vanegas: Gee, I guess it was a good thing I brought it to the attention of the thread, which is obviously read by those in control...gg
LG
The Rich and Their Taxes
April 15, 2008
By Steven Malanga
One of the most persistent themes in this presidential campaign is that the rich are not only getting richer, but that they are also not paying their fair share of taxes, mostly because of tax cuts that favor the wealthy. We hear this not only from the Democratic candidates, but from the media, and even from some of the rich themselves.
Last week, for instance, the Economic Scene column in The New York Times informed us that our tax code has become more favorable to high income workers--the big winners in the last boom, the column added--and asked rhetorically, “That doesn’t make sense, does it?” Meanwhile, Sen. Hillary Clinton has decried “reckless tax cuts for the rich,” which she says are adding to the middle class tax burden. Then of course there’s high financier Warren Buffett, who declared last year that taxes were too low on the wealthy. To prove it he’d done a survey in his own office and found that his tax rate was below that of many of his employees.
Reading all of this after having filed your taxes, you probably imagine that the rich are doing a nifty job of avoiding theirs, and that it’s an overburdened middle class that is mostly supporting America’s government—from the war in Iraq to our many domestic programs. And you’d be wrong. As Internal Revenue Service data demonstrate, the rich are getting wealthier, but they are also paying a steadily increasing share of the federal tax burden. Over 25 years, in fact, the percentage of the federal income tax bill paid by the wealthiest Americans has doubled, even as it has shrunk for all others. We are rapidly becoming a society in which a very few pay the greatest part of the cost of government, and everyone else enjoys the benefits. And many people, from our Democratic presidential candidates to members of Congress, want to make it even more so.
To consider how the landscape has changed, it’s worth looking at taxes paid by various income groups over time, via data crunched by the IRS. In 1980, with Jimmy Carter still as president, the top 1 percent of filers, those who reported an adjusted growth income of $80,580 or more, paid 19 percent of all federal income taxes. That was actually less than the total tax share of people collectively in the 11th to 25th percentiles, that is, middle income taxpayers making roughly between $24,000 and $35,000 (in 1980 dollars), and also less than the total share of those earning between $13,000 and $24,000, who represented the 26th to 50th percentiles.
A decade later, despite tax cuts in the 1980s that many critics claimed benefited the rich, our top 1 percent of filers were paying more of the total--25 percent of the country’s tax bill—than anyone else. The portion of taxes paid by the top filers continue to grow throughout the 1990s and into the new century, pausing only for recessions, which are generally periods in which the share of taxes paid by the rich falls because their incomes tend to decline the most. By 2005, the most recent year data are available, our top 1 percent of filers were paying nearly 40 percent of the federal income tax bill, while those in the 2nd to 5th percentile paid another 20 percent. Every other group saw its share of the tax bill decline, sometimes substantially. Those taxpayers in the 26th to 50th percentile (that is, with an adjusted gross income roughly between $31,000 and $62,000) paid 11 percent of all federal income taxes, down from 20 percent back in 1980, while those in the 11th to 25th percentiles (earning between $62,000 and $104,000 today), paid 16 percent of the federal tax bill, down from 24 percent in 1980.
How can all of this be true if, to hear Warren Buffett tell his story, it’s so easy for the rich to minimize their taxes? Buffett’s claim, based on comparing his tax rate to those of people who worked for him, got plenty of publicity, and probably invoked in many people the memory of Leona Helmsley’s infamous line, “only the little people pay taxes.” Buffett’s low tax rate, some people conjectured, was a result of the fact that he earned mostly dividend and capital gains income, and those are now taxed largely at a 15 percent rate.
But Buffett is an exception—one of the super rich. By contrast, most of the wealthy in America today garner their income principally from wages, and thus not only pay more in taxes, but pay taxes at a higher real rate than everyone else—Warren Buffett aside. While taxpayers in every bracket do what they can to minimize their taxes, in 2005, the top 1 percent of filers paid 23 percent of their adjusted gross income in income taxes. Those earning between $62,000 and $104,000--certainly part of the middle class that Hillary Clinton says is bearing a bigger burden because of tax cuts for the wealthy--paid an average tax rate of 9 percent. The tax rate of those with incomes between $31,000 and $62,000 was under 7 percent, or less than one third of the tax rate of the rich.
Of course, this is only the federal income tax. We have other taxes in America, including payroll taxes and even corporate taxes—which individuals pay indirectly through taxes on businesses in which we own shares. The Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan entity like the IRS, figures all of those into its calculations of tax rates that Americans pay and concludes that the richest 1 percent pay an even higher real tax rate than the IRS figures—31 percent of income.
Yes, these stats do tell us that some people are doing very well in America, including presumably many people who were middle or low-income workers sometime during the past 25 years and have now vaulted into the top 1 percent of earners. But the data also tell us that much of the hyperventilating in our public discussions about the rich not paying a fair share of taxes is disconnected from reality.
Still, given how skewed the discussion has become, it seems almost certain that with a Democratic victory in the presidential race come November, we will see taxes—and the overall share of taxes paid--rise for the wealthy. Are there any dangers in a society where a fleetingly few earners pay such a big share of taxes, and where some folks’ notion of fairness means taxing these few ever more? We might consider that question by looking at states with their own progressive state income taxes.
Last week, for instance, a labor union-supported policy group released a study noting that Connecticut now has the largest gap between the rich and the poor in the nation. The local pages of the New York Times dutifully reported on this study and asked, what could be done as a remedy? Raise taxes, the advocates urged, heedless of the fact that in Connecticut the top 5 percent of the state’s taxpayers already bear the bulk of the state’s income tax burden. The situation is much the same in neighboring New Jersey and in New York where, for instance, the top income bracket represents just 0.4 percent of taxpayers, but they pay one-third of the state’s income tax.
Is there a consequence to this? Well, for one thing, it’s practically compulsory when talking about the state government in each of these three places to use the adjective “dysfunctional.” All three states have seen governors resign in disgrace within the past several years. All three states are rife with corruption, pork barrel spending and government inefficiencies. Hardly a day goes by that the newspapers don’t reveal yet another outrage of waste, or mismanagement or thievery.
Yet little changes in the government of these states, much to the amazement of outsiders, who often wonder why voters continue to stand for it. The answer, I tell them, is that a very small percentage of voters are paying for this waste, mismanagement and bloat. The rest pay so little that they don’t really care, or they benefit from bloated government, either through jobs in the oversized public sectors, or as users of services.
This is what you get when the few support the many--the direction the federal government is now heading. You get Connecticut, New York or (God help us) New Jersey.
Steven Malanga is an editor for RealClearMarkets and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute
http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2008/04/the_rich_and_their_taxes.html
THE 'UNTAXED' EXPLOSION
(A January 2008 article, the situation has only gotten worse, since...)
January 25, 2008
SHOULD non-taxpayers get a tax "rebate"? That was the revealing sticking point in the Washington debate over an economic-stimulus package.
Democrats insisted on spreading the rebate to people who don't pay the federal income tax for a simple reason - there are so many of them.
A literal rebate - in the sense of giving back a bit of what people actually pay - was objectionable because it would exclude the 40 percent of US households that pay no federal income tax at all.
That fact is worth noting because it puts the lie to the notion that the federal tax code is a vampirish scheme by Republican economic elites to privilege the rich at the expense of the poor. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards can barely say the word "taxes" without retailing some version of this tale, which is detached from reality and has been getting steadily more so.
The number of people on the lower end of the income scale exempt from federal income taxes has been increasing - while the share of the federal income tax burden borne by higher-end taxpayers has gone up. If this is the fruit of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush's class warfare on behalf of the wealthy, the boys down at the yacht club have to be bitterly disappointed.
A study by the Tax Foundation (of all taxes, not just federal income taxes) found that between 1991 and 2004, "the only income group whose share of total taxes increased was the highest income quintile." The Congressional Budget Office reports that the top 40 percent of taxpayers paid 99.1 percent of federal income taxes in 2004, leaving the other 60 percent to pay .9 percent.
The wealthiest 1 percent of taxpayers - the focus of so much Democratic ire - pay nearly 40 percent of federal income taxes, and about as much as the entirety of the bottom 95 percent.
People at the lowest end have been escaping federal income taxes entirely. More than 40 million income-tax filers have no income-tax liability. President Bush's tax cuts increased the number in this group by millions. And 20 million-plus families pay no income taxes while getting a check from the Treasury thanks to the Earned Income Tax Credit, a bipartisan policy that President Bill Clinton made one of his causes.
Our tax system is hugely redistributive. When all federal, state and local taxes and spending are taken into account, the lowest 20 percent of households got $8.21 in spending for every dollar of taxes paid in 2004, while the top 40 percent paid more in taxes than they received in spending, according to the Tax Foundation. Overall, more than a trillion dollars was extracted by the U.S. government and handed out further down the income scale.
Democrats counter that the rich pay more in taxes only because they've been getting richer. Yes, but no one knows how to stop them from getting richer as long as the economy's growing (and it wouldn't help anyone to try). By any standard, they pay their fair share. As they pony up almost 40 percent of federal income taxes, the top 1 percent earn a little more than 20 percent of the nation's income.
Federal income taxes aren't the whole picture. People lower down on the income scale still have to pay the payroll tax to fund programs like Social Security. Even here, though, the rich bear the heaviest burden: The top 20 percent paid more than 44 percent of payroll taxes in 2004, the CBO reports.
As for the "rebate debate," if the (dubious) premise is to kick-start the economy by scattering money around, lower-income people paying no income taxes might as well be included, as they are in the White House-congressional deal.
But the moment shouldn't pass without noting what it tells us about the tax system supposedly being skewed toward the rich. It isn't - except in the sense that it exacts more taxes from them.
comments.lowry@nationalreview.com
http://www.nypost.com/seven/01252008/postopinion/opedcolumnists/the_untaxed_explosion_308048.htm
U.S. Taxpayers Risk $9.7 Trillion on Bailout Programs
By Mark Pittman and Bob Ivry
Feb. 9 (Bloomberg) -- The stimulus package the U.S. Congress is completing would raise the government’s commitment to solving the financial crisis to $9.7 trillion, enough to pay off more than 90 percent of the nation’s home mortgages.
The Federal Reserve, Treasury Department and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation have lent or spent almost $3 trillion over the past two years and pledged up to $5.7 trillion more. The Senate is to vote this week on an economic-stimulus measure of at least $780 billion. It would need to be reconciled with an $819 billion plan the House approved last month.
Only the stimulus bill to be approved this week, the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program passed four months ago and $168 billion in tax cuts and rebates enacted in 2008 have been voted on by lawmakers. The remaining $8 trillion is in lending programs and guarantees, almost all under the Fed and FDIC. Recipients’ names have not been disclosed.
“We’ve seen money go out the back door of this government unlike any time in the history of our country,” Senator Byron Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat, said on the Senate floor Feb. 3. “Nobody knows what went out of the Federal Reserve Board, to whom and for what purpose. How much from the FDIC? How much from TARP? When? Why?”
Financial Rescue
The pledges, amounting to almost two-thirds of the value of everything produced in the U.S. last year, are intended to rescue the financial system after the credit markets seized up about 18 months ago. The promises are composed of about $1 trillion in stimulus packages, around $3 trillion in lending and spending and $5.7 trillion in agreements to provide aid. The total already tapped has decreased about 1 percent since November, mostly because foreign central banks are using fewer dollars in currency-exchange agreements called swaps.
Federal Reserve lending to banks peaked at a record $2.3 trillion in December, dropping to $1.83 trillion by last week. The Fed balance sheet is still more than double the $880 billion it was in the week before Sept. 17 when it agreed to accept lower-quality collateral.
The worst financial crisis in two generations has erased $14.5 trillion, or 33 percent, of the value of the world’s companies since Sept. 15; brought down Bear Stearns Cos. and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.; and led to the takeover of Merrill Lynch & Co. by Bank of America Corp.
The $9.7 trillion in pledges would be enough to send a $1,430 check to every man, woman and child alive in the world. It’s 13 times what the U.S. has spent so far on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Congressional Budget Office data, and is almost enough to pay off every home mortgage loan in the U.S., calculated at $10.5 trillion by the Federal Reserve.
‘All the Stops’
“The Fed, Treasury and FDIC are pulling out all the stops to stop any widespread systemic damage to the economy,” said Dana Johnson, chief economist for Comerica Inc. in Dallas and a former senior economist at the central bank. “The federal government is on the hook for an awful lot of money but I think it’s needed to help the financial system recover.”
Bloomberg News tabulated data from the Fed, Treasury and FDIC and interviewed regulators, economists and academic researchers to gauge the full extent of the government’s rescue effort.
Commitments may expand again soon. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner postponed until tomorrow an announcement that may invite private investment as a way to clear toxic debt from bank balance sheets. Measures that have been settled include a new round of injections of taxpayer funds into banks, targeted at those identified by regulators as most in need of additional capital, people briefed on the matter said.
Program Delay
The government is already backing $301 billion of Citigroup Inc. securities and another $118 billion from Bank of America. The government hasn’t yet paid out on any of the guarantees.
The Fed said Friday that it is delaying the start a $200 billion program called the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility, or TALF, to revive the market for securities based on consumer loans such as credit-card, auto and student borrowings.
Most of the spending programs are run out of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where Geithner served as president. He was sworn in as Treasury secretary on Jan. 26.
When Congress approved the TARP on Oct. 3, Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and then Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson acknowledged the need for transparency and oversight. The Federal Reserve so far is refusing to disclose loan recipients or reveal the collateral they are taking in return. Collateral is an asset pledged by a borrower in the event a loan payment isn’t made.
Fed Sued
Bloomberg requested details of Fed lending under the Freedom of Information Act and filed a federal lawsuit against the central bank Nov. 7 seeking to force disclosure of borrower banks and their collateral. Arguments in the suit may be heard as soon as this month, according to the court docket. Bloomberg asked the Treasury in an FOIA request Jan. 28 for a detailed list of the securities it planned to guarantee for Citigroup and Bank of America. Bloomberg hasn’t received a response to the request.
The Bloomberg lawsuit is Bloomberg LP v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, 08-CV-9595, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
For Related News and Information:
To contact the reporters on this story: Mark Pittman in New York at mpittman@bloomberg.net ; Bob Ivry in New York at bivry@bloomberg.net .
Last Updated: February 9, 2009 12:43 EST
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=washingtonstory&sid=aGq2B3XeGKok