the punchbowl. This is not a slam against bill as much as a slam on how bidness as usual has been carried out between the banks and the gummint since the Nixon years.
"American banks have about $25.6 billion in outstanding loans to Brazilian borrowers. Citigroup, the biggest lender to Brazil, has $9.7 billion in Brazilian loans." That's right. Forty percent of the U.S. bank exposure in Brazil is the fault of America's biggest and dumbest bank. And who is the resident financial wizard at Citigroup?
"Robert H. Rubin, who was treasury secretary under President Clinton and engineered international rescue packages for Mexico, Russia and many Asian countries, is now a Citigroup director."
Andrews pointedly adds, "A representative for Citigroup could not say whether bank executives had lobbied in favor of a rescue package for Brazil." But the day the Brazilian bailout was announced, Citigroup's stock shot up 6 percent.
The career of Robert Rubin is instructive. As lead pony at Goldman Sachs, he led that investment bank into plunging billions into Mexican bonds. As head of the White House Economic Security Council, he failed to see the Mexican default barreling up the tracks. But as treasury secretary, he was able to shovel billions of U.S. dollars down Mexico way, thus saving the Goldman Sachs investments. "
maybe it is time for US foreign bailouts to support bad loans made by US banks at the behest of the government to end. This will destroy the federal reserve which maybe a good thing,
thanx,
bill