spent nearly $200,000 on Red Sox tickets, limousine travel, mysterious withdrawals at the Foxwoods casino and a donation of more than $1,000 to his synagogue.

If he’d spent the entire $200K on Red Sox tickets, that would be okay by me.

Bad judgment to have diversified his criminality.

I reread this 2007 Mother Jones article with new eyes. It seems Goldman Sachs is involved in the privatization of America’s turnpikes, and Americans are now paying foreign consortiums (who are overseeing these roads for a profit) higher fees than before to ride on pre-existing American roads.

http://trueslant.com/matttaibb…..-all-time/

See http://www.sacbee.com/topstori…..63763.html
for the lead article (nearly three pages ) about a small West Sacramento, CA bank whose principles and friends have obscenely reaped benefits in the midst of receiving TARP funds, and the bank president says they’re operating within legal standards. If that’s the case then there sure has to be radical redefinitions of what is legal standards.

On the other hand, the sentiment well represents Scarecrow’s observations about Larry Summer’s regulatory philosophy on 6/13: (http://odownfiredoglake.com/diary/5748). The plan to maxmize Fed power in the financial regulatory proposals must be stopped, absolutely and categorically, all the more because of the anticipation that Obama plans to replace Bernanke with Summers. Larry’s and Timothy’s hands are all over the proposed regulatory reforms, very much reflecting the WALL STREET control of Congress. Both are steeped in the existing financial system and can’t conceive seeing outside of the box and knowing that the current arrangements are positively obscene. While Timothy, continuing to feign innocence, argue that the proposals are too strict for some and not strict enough for others, they certainly aren’t strict enough for decency, integrity and justice. But then neither he nor the right can see outside their self-protecting boxes. And no one I see is really pushing hard for outside the box standards.

I don’t have the cite, but there’s an article from NYT???? today about the FDIC closing three more small banks. The Sac Bee article specifically says that while the West Sac bank’s practices are and have been probably illegal on many fronts, relative to current law, FDIC is doing nothing to hold them accountable. And there was a recent article seen at HuffPost that said that FDIC was ignoring many, many small banks in horrible shape; don’t have cite.

On the other hand, the huge Sac Bee article includes a “little” side box describing the reporter’s methodology for developing the story from FDIC data (freely given – quite unlike the Treasury Department’s and Fed’s refusals to be transparent about TARP and other funds),area legal documents, and the bank’s actual documents. It represents a humonguous amount of investigative reporting, the like of which I had thought I might never see again. On the other hand, Sac Bee is one of the McClatchy papers and they are well known for their investigative journalism.

Tobywallin’s comment here

And that was a lie too — banks used the money to buy up other banks; banks are now using it to pay back the feds because they don’t want to have to follow the rules and…woopsie..banks are NOT using it to lend to business (as a matter of fact, bank lending to business has been going down, down, down ever since they got the damn money)….

is reflected in the Bee article.

Art 45’s comment: There was such a Progressive effort to oust Shays and install Himes…. brings to mind the senior couple from Hartford, CT visiting our small Sacto Episcopal church who shared their continued grief on the loss of the righteous Chris Shays and disgust for his successor…… Stupid progressives.

Thanks Jane for a great post and to those who added to the dialogue.

Blessings to all,

We’ll make up the difference by forcing little old ladies to eat catfood.

There was such a Progressive effort to oust Shays and install Himes.

Himes portrayed himself, and was portrayed by his supporters, as such a good guy.

I’m pretty cynical, but I gave to him and got some friendly responses.

The laugh is on me.

Lesson learned: They all suck (with a couple exceptions — e.g., Kucinich).