Goldman Sachs Under Pressure to Return $2.9 Billion Windfall to Taxpayers

Staff / Truthdig Feb 17, 2011 Critics of the financial chop shop, of which there are many, would like to see Goldman Sachs return billions in taxpayer dollars paid out to cover a $20 million bet. The huge payout was passed through AIG, orchestrated by then-Chairman Timothy Geithner's New York Fed, and publicized by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

The Life and Times of Bush the Clueless

Robert Scheer / Truthdig Nov 10, 2010 The Harvard MBA is the degree that George W. Bush and his last treasury secretary, Henry Paulson, had in common, and their shared ignorance as they presided over the collapse of the U.S. economy is on full display in the former president’s newly published memoir.It takes a Harvard MBA to raze an economy. Perhaps that is too narrow a judgment given that a law degree from that institution or from Yale University seems to serve as well. Dig deeper ( 4 Min. Read )

AIG’s IOU Coming Due With Strings Attached

Staff / Truthdig Oct 1, 2010 AIG plans to start paying back the taxpayers some of the $182 billion it borrowed, but the plan involves trading the government's preferred shares in the company for common stock, a move that ought to raise at least one eyebrow. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

AIG Settles for $725 Million

Staff / Truthdig Jul 17, 2010 American International Group, 80 percent owned by the U.S. government, has announced it will pay out $725 million in a settlement of a securities fraud lawsuit, begun in 2004, that accused the insurance Gargantua of accounting fraud and stock manipulation. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

Regulators Made Sure Goldman Sachs Got All of Its Bailout Money

Staff / Truthdig Jun 30, 2010 A devastating report in The New York Times documents how Timothy Geithner's New York Fed worked tirelessly to make sure that AIG was forced to pay banks such as Goldman Sachs 100 percent on dubious contracts that might otherwise have been slashed or subjected to lawsuits. (continued) Dig deeper ( 2 Min. Read )

Former AIG Exec May Be Off the Hook

Staff / Truthdig May 22, 2010 People close to the case are claiming that AIG executive Joseph Cassano will not face federal charges related to allegations that he misled investors over the company's handling of mortgage-related securities prior to the economic crash and subsequent Wall Street bailout. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

Senate Gives the Go-Ahead for Fed Lending Probe

Staff / Truthdig May 12, 2010 When big financial institutions got themselves into a serious pickle in the fall of 2008, the Federal Reserve was there with beaucoup bucks in loans to prop them up. On Tuesday, the Senate voted unanimously to launch an inquiry into the Fed's lending practices during the financial crisis. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

Goldman’s Hand in AIG’s Collapse

Staff / Truthdig Feb 7, 2010 Recently disclosed internal documents and an audio recording regarding a 2008 securities standoff between Goldman Sachs and insurance giant AIG appear to be the smoking guns necessary to pinpoint Goldman's culpability in the mortgage meltdown and the collapse of AIG. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

Bernanke Offers Fed’s AIG Records to Gov’t Watchdogs

Staff / Truthdig Jan 20, 2010 The Fed has nothing to hide about its dealings with AIG when it saved the too-big-to-fail insurance behemoth during the great bailout of 2008-9 -- or at least Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has signaled his full willingness to make the central bank's relevant "records and personnel" available to investigators from the Government Accountability Office. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

Obama Wants a Wall Street Recovery Tax

Staff / Truthdig Jan 15, 2010 President Barack Obama wants to slap a new tax on the country's largest financial institutions in an ostensible attempt to "recover every single dime" given away in 2008's Wall Street bailout. The tax was met with predictable fat-cat jeers, despite the fact that the industry has largely recovered from the crisis. Dig deeper ( 2 Min. Read )

Reich Urges Obama to ‘Take On Wall Street’

Staff / Truthdig Jan 14, 2010 He's not the only one saying this, but considering his background, Robert Reich is a pretty significant voice pointing out how, over a year since things went seriously south on Wall Street, "almost nothing has been done to prevent all hell from breaking loose again." Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

Rep. Cummings Wants Geithner to Testify About N.Y. Fed-AIG E-Mails

Staff / Truthdig Jan 8, 2010 Back in 2008, when Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was just the lowly president of the New York Federal Reserve, he was involved in some interactions with embattled insurance giant AIG that apparently resulted in AIG withholding important information from the public. Now Geithner's under pressure from at least one concerned member of Congress to testify about this matter. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )