Previously: Let’s do this.
Vikram Pandit: [mumbling] Because you touch yourself.
Frank: What?
VP: Nothing.
John Mack: Great question, your honor…I’d do this job even if you paid me nothing.
*Context: Mr. Frank is referring to bonuses. He also would like to know if the CEOs take longer lunches and/or leave work early when they don’t receive said bribes.
Rep. Kanjorski: When did you first realize the economy was in trubs?
Ken Lewis: To Sec. Paulson’s credit, he called me in August 2007 and said, “Ken, we’ve got some real challenges in the economy.”
Rep. Kanjorski: Okay, no. At that point every halfwit and their mother knew things were bad. You didn’t realize it before then?
Lewis realizes he doesn’t have a good answer, trails off inaudibly, curses John Thain.
Moving on:
Blankfein: “I don’t want to write my assets down to what they are really worth.”
Pandit: “I could sell a hundred dollar bill for $1.”
Maxine Waters has been through big fights, huge. Also, the drugs they loaded her up on earlier this morning are wearing off. She asks the “Captains” of the Universe, “Did you increase you credit card interest rates?”
Ken Lewis tries a joke: “I feel like a corporal of the universe, not a captain.”
MW: No, shut up, just answer the question.
KL: Yes.
MW: Anyone else? Don’t speak, just raise your hand.
Waters: [Shouts in a way that makes even Maxine Waters scared of Maxine Waters, about something, which is unclear, proceeds to demand an answer.]
Ken Lewis: “I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”
Waters: “Do any of you understand what I’m talking about???”
[Pandit stifles laughter.]
Rep. Maloney would like to thank Bank of America for building a HQ during New York’s darkest hour.
Maloney gives Cuomo’s pet project a shout out. Please let Lewis blame Thain, Please let Lewis blame Thain.
Lewis: We urged the Merrill Lynch executives we were involved with to reduce the bonuses at the top. But they were their own woman, so we couldn’t tell them what to do just, urge, strongly urge. Women, you know? Can’t live with ‘em, can’t live…
John Mack says we need a coordinated Super Regulator.
Jamie Dimon isn’t placing blame on the regulators, but he’s also not not placing blame on the regulators. He would also like One Big Reg.
Rep Luis Gutierrez: How should we price the assets going forward? Throw them down the stairs and assign value in ascending order based on how far they land? I’m open to ideas.
Pandit: Our first line of defense is to do everything we can to improve liquidity, credit, all that financial mumbo-jumbo. Re: valuing, eh, that’s a tough question.
Luis “Maxine Walters” Gutierrez wants “all 8 of you to put in writing” how much the panel’s institutions have paid themselves for underwriting their issues of government backed debt.
Yesssss:
Rep. Nydia Velazquez to Blankfein: “Are you implying that Citigroup lost its mind?”
Blankfein: “If they did it’s not because of this [mortgage] issue”
[Laughter from everyone but Pandit]
Velazquez would like to know why they the money to lend to large acquisitions but not to lend to her constituents.
[blank stares]
“Of course, you are not going to provide that answer.”
Next:
Congresswoman in Pink SWOOOONS over Jamie Dimon’s answer to question about some guy who never missed a payment and had his interest rate spiked to 22%.
Congresswoman in P: “Are any of you too big to fail? Mr. Pandit, why don’t you take this one.”
John Mack reppin’ for the peons! He’s concerned about deflections from employees below the senior level on account of shit pay.
Here we have a dilema. Frank and Friends said they wanted this hearing to restore confidence. But Rep. Gary Ackerman is very disappointed that the Great 8 before him are telling him everything is just fine, when people in his district tell him that’s not the case. Ackerman seems like a nice guy, so, in order to placate him, should Vikram Pandit strip naked and start shouting “this bitch is going down”?
Ackerman: Let’s go down the line and say how much new money– of their own– they’ve put into their firms.
Blankfein: All of it, because I’m paid in stock.
Ackerman: No, give me a number.
Blankfein: None.
Dimon: I bought $12 million.
Lewis: 400k shares, I don’t know how much that is.
Mack: Nothing
Pandit: $8.4 million.
And we’re adjourned ’til 1:15PM. Question for the group: What do you suppose Maxine Waters will be dining on for lunch?
wonder if the rest of MS loves their jobs as much as Mack…
JMack is so disingenuous. Unless you’re insane, NO ONE would ever work for free. Doing anything. Nevermind running an investment bank. It’s such a stupid question and an even more retarded response. What a farce.
Say what you will about Geithner, but these Wall St. CEOs have been even worse.
This guy nails it:
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/02/pearlstein_wall_st_leadership_non-existent.php
JMack meant pay him no salary but a huge “not-a-bonus-bonus”
Bess, can we have just 1 discussion on this hearing instead of a bunch?
Bess, can we have just 1 discussion on this hearing instead of a bunch?
Maxine!!!
tautology
maxine waters: “captains of the universe”??
err, try master or industry…geeez
oh my God this is incredible. Took her 4 seconds to bring up minority discrimination.
FUCK MAXINE WATERS. This moron isn’t smart enough to teach 2nd grade.
Maxine Waters sounds like a racist herself. What a joke.
Pandit just raised his hand waaaay to eagerly
I hope against hope that she asks Goldman about their credit card practices.
She looks like Whitney Houston’s ugly cousin
Bet she was one of the people that forced the banks to take on bad loans.
Ken Lewis: “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
his [you crazy ho!] expression is classic!!!
“I have no idea what you’re talking about!”
-Ken Lewis
AMAZING
the only good that may come of this is BACKLASH. And I hope it is strong and furious.
Hahah, the look on Vikram Pandit’s face just now trying to explain underwriting to Waters was priceless!
Ken Lewis: “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” LOL!
This is going to make a delightful SNL sketch. Maxine is a real gem.
Maxine Waters is waste. She reminds me of every horrible teacher Ive ever had.
a. Why does she ask stupid questions?
b. Why does she yell INTO A MICROPHONE?
c. What died on her head?
I realize this is going out on a limb but Maxine Waters is the dumbest person in Washington
Bet she was one of the people that forced the banks to take on bad loans.
Why is Maxine Waters on the panel at all? I just don’t see the point of having someone that clueless asking questions….
Holy shit…someone voted for that woman?
Hole….
Hole…..
It’s congressional inquests such as these, that sometimes make me wake up in the morning and say to myself,
“Please tell me today is the end of the world…”
She is the best.
The highlight of these hearings is always her performance.
Ken Lewis is such an arrogant prick.
His face was a classic “why the hell did i have to take the fucking Amtrack down here to answer this crazy womans inane questions”.
Maxine W. at her bat-shit craziest. Anyone want to join me in a “We are truly FUCKED chant” ?
Bet she was one of the people that forced the banks to take on bad loans.
Maxine Waters is an inspiration to us all. With her help, we will get out of this crisis.
Echo 32
Echo 32
go maxine!
maxine waters is what you get from having politically correct eager to please self doubting underperforming ex-hippies gone power hungry self righteous leftwing establishment retards in the government.
I hope one of the bankboys stands up and says – fuck it you bitch you couldn’t even get a job as a cleaner in my office and now zip it.
zip it!!
Can we put together a fund to hire Blackwater to do something about the “Maxine Waters/Barney Frank Situation?”
vicki pandit sure is one smug bastard for a penny stock CEO
Echo 32
Watch Lewis smackdown Thain before Maloney!
Actually, if past performance is any indication of future results, Maxine Waters and a team of sixteen howler monkeys could do a better job running Wall Street than the clowns at the table.
Which is not to say that would be a good thing …
http://www.0xdeadbeef.com/html/monkeys.txt
does anyone else think that Maxine Waters looks like Rick James in drag
comment #45 is classic
mad max..ine waters…makes me cringe that these are the people leading the country.. they should ahve to pass some sort of remedial math test to be allowed to ask a question…who ever wrote the questions for her should have explained them to her first.
Echo 40…@45 SUPER FREAK!!!
Did Gutierrez just call him “Bandit”? Why. is he. speaking in. halting. stopping. fash. ion?
Luis Guiterriz is another good one. I think he likes Vikram’s smile.
@39
Nice shot
One big regulator would be so much easier to buy off.
What time does the token “activist” who sneaks a banner and/or homemade T-Shirt into all of these hearings get up, interrupt, and chant some anti-bank slogan until she is dragged out kicking and screaming??
Maxine actually made me feel sorry for the bank boys
Here’s the deal: When you lose billions of dollars and you take billions of gov’t dollars to stay afloat, your fucking risk management DID NOT WORK and you deserve to be pilloried by Maxine.
Go Maxine!!
The guy the O’bama administration put in charge of the Treasury has his very own adjustable Rate Mortgage. Nothing like putting the Poster child for the New American Lifestyle who can’t manage his families finances and pay his taxes in charge of the US Treasury.
Mr Geithner has a $1 Million Adjustable Rate Mortgage on his home – and a $400,000 HELOC.
The couple bought a home in the Washington suburb of Bethesda, Md., in 1992 for $275,000, taking a mortgage of $202,300. Through a series of refinancings and the sale of two properties, they climbed the economic ladder until they bought a house for $1.6 million in Larchmont, N.Y., in 2004.
All of the Geithners’ mortgages – from big banks including Nationsbanc, which is now Bank of America; Chase Manhattan, which is now J.P. Morgan Chase; and Wells Fargo – carried adjustable-rate mortgages with the risk that annual rate increases could raise their interest payments to as much as 11.25 percent, though the couple tended to refinance or sell their homes before they faced a rate adjustment.
They also took out second mortgages, now known as home equity lines of credit, borrowing a total of nearly $1 million in 2002 on their second Bethesda home, which they bought a year earlier for $1,085,000.
In 2004, they sold that house for $1.45 million and bought their current house in the New York suburb of Larchmont with a $1 million Wells Fargo mortgage, later adding a $400,000 home equity line of credit, also from Wells Fargo.
@8 contradiction
No one with an eduaction above 4th grade should be spoken down to by MW…
Serious question – WTF does this hearing solve, address, or cause to be done at all? Gigantic waste of time designed solely to give the appearance that “Washington” is working on this issue and take a few worthless shots at these CEOs. ….Sound and fury signifying NOTHING… This is a very sad time for America indeed !
56- Hey dumbass taking out an ARM isn’t the problem. Its taking out an ARM where you initially aren’t making full payments. Shit the person who took out an ARM indexed to one month libor is loving life right now.
“No one with an eduaction above 4th grade ….”
Obviously weren’t referring to yourself #58.
Jamie Dimon was born in New York to Theodore and Themis Dimon. His grandfather, a Greek immigrant from Turkey, was a broker and passed on his knowledge of the business to his son and partner, Theodore. They worked together for 19 years, and Jamie held summer jobs at their New York office.
As a boy, Jamie Dimon attended The Browning School, an all boys prep-school on the Upper East Side. Later, he majored in psychology and economics at Tufts University, before earning an M.B.A. degree from Harvard Business School.
Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Waters graduated from Vashon High School in St. Louis and attended Los Angeles State College (now California State University, Los Angeles). Prior to her entry into politics, she was a teacher and a volunteer coordinator in the Head Start program.
@61 Point taken……s/b below..
@55 Deserve ain’t got nothin’ to do with it…it’s just their time, that’s all
Nydia!!
56: Cite?
Browning represent!
Bill Gates dropped out of college. Fuckers at GS won’t hire a college drop out.
We don’t think they have lost their mind, and if they have it’s not cuz of this.
Pandit Burned
I’d like to see Zsa Zsa Gabor asking questions too.
vp looks like he just got the whole class in trouble with the cram downs comment
lol http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxine_Waters scroll down: “2005 list of the thirteen “Most Corrupt Members of Congress” list and on the 2006 list for “her exercise of this power to financially benefit her daughter, husband and son.” “
I cannot wait until the SNL skit! What a bunch of clowns!
dimon always keeps it classy.
Hey, where all da white women at?
@ 59.
It is like some bull shit townhall meeting for each of the congress idiots districts.
It will accomplish nothing except to get various bank CEO’s on commercial planes or public transit.
Oh yes, and save me from having to listen to dennis kneale for a deay. For that i am almost grateful to congress.
I’d kind of like to tag that staffer in the background of the congressman in the hearings … lots of cute little ponies down in D.C.
This joke Congress is a perfect example of why we need term limits. At the very least, we’d have a different stupid every so often.
This is surreal.
@78
agreed, TERM LIMITS!
Didn’t Gutierrez seem a little too enthusiastic about thanking Pandit for the “private meeting” they had the day before?
Watching this sad excuse of a hearing is like trying to explain color to a blind person.
Maxine was one of the legislators who pushed for FNM and FRE lowering credit standards for some programs. She’s a part of the problem To Max, didn’t water
Hope Mack and Blankfein will write 10B dollar checks each before they leave town as the nice congressman requested earlier. These crooks pretend they don’t need the money, never mind billions in debt they sold using FDIC(i.e., taxpayer) backing.
Maxine Waters went gansta style on the boys from the street! Mmmmm hmmmmm.
The husband of Maxine Waters owns a Mercedes dealership in Los Angeles. She isn’t impoverished like her other constituents. I am told Fred Sanford is running for Congress against her in 2010; Rollo will be his campaign manager.
@85 doesnt she play the mom in the B.I.G. (in cinemas now)
Y’ALLS companies is stupid. Did you hear me, cracker? i said stupid. S-T-O-O-P-I-D. Read mah lips, honky!
@82, like the scene from the movie “mask”
@ 82
FTW
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tanJtjDfhUk
Wow, that’s some scary shite. Seriously people, we ELECT these dimwits into office.
Maxine Waters is psycho. Here’s her on YoutTube threatening to take over oil companies
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUaY3LhJ-IQ
Who is the Senator from NY with the accent form the hood?
Can we all just please agree that Oasis is the greatest band since the Beatles? I’M WEARING LADIES UNDERPANTS!
That would be Congresswoman Nydia Velasquez.
I am sorry, but Gary Ackerman is greatest House member representing New York City. I like his blunt honesty.
Bess is the best!
Outstanding!
@82
more like trying to explain algebra to a retarded group of people.
i get Besstially aroused by this repornoting
@86- You got the name of that dealership?
@82 – use Marshmallows
Can we kick out everyone in Congress and start over? I call mulligan.
Maxine is the dumbest person in Washington. She should be ashamed at how stupid her f-ing questions sounded. What a joke.
My bad, I stand corrected. Her husband was a Mercedes-Benz salesman at a dealership in Beverly Hills.
Unlike CEOs and other upper tiers of management of Wall Street firms, I admit, I WAS WRONG. :D
a cocktail of vicodin and ritalin
“Do any of you guys know what I’m talking about?!”
At 5:45 in that video linked above:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tanJtjDfhUk
“No bitch, we dont”
@102- And the people who elected that piece of shit think she’s a god because she can “getz allz up in urz face phat kat foolz.” Maybe we are the retards who fall outside the bell curve.
Maxine Waters looks like she belongs in Hamsterdam, not congress.
My pandit itches, i need to put more vikram on it.
exactly right: “money is fungible”
you stupid mother fuckers. we didn’t pay bonuses out of the tarp money, we paid out of a different set of money. you fuckin’ assholes.
@ 107
Now that’s some “outside the box” thinking!
Sadly, now that you mention it, I’ve become inescapably depressed, sigh…
I’m switching over to the Peanut Butter Hearings on the other CSpan feed….
Everyone on the panel please raise your hand if you are not a douchebag.
goldman doesn’t have a plane?? really?
This Sherman guy is a tool.
Does he not realize that he has constituents with IRA’s / 401(k)’s / pensions that are invested with these companies?
Go back to IT, you stupid weaselly California fuckbag.
@114 bc blankfein owns his own…
what a fckin hatchet job, i want to look at the “taxpayers” represented by these jokers…after credits they probably pay 0 in taxes, so quit bitching.
Especially true in the case of Inglewood, Cali’s own Maxine.
Am I an idiot?
Maxine Waters is my hero
Where else in this country , could someone with so little talent , so little brain power , and such an abrasive attitude , possibly find a career , but in the US House of Representatives ?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
God bless us all
I move that the state of California be stripped of any and all representation in the Congress.
Can I get any seconders?
Why is that black man pretending to be Barney Frank?
Yep.
So Maxine Waters is a woman? Huh. I stand corrected.
DJ Chazzy G.
Man Barney hit the tanning both, Mozilo style, on the lunch break.
How come no one in Congress does not ask Geithner why he has allowed the banks to now act as an oligopoly under the government’s eyes? The only way the banks can payback TARP funds and repair their balance sheets is to raise fees and generate more fees.
@119
sure. if you promise never to come here. that goes for the rest of your dirty guido family, too.
Our “representatives” are so effing stupid. Sweet baby jesus.
Maxine Waters has the best hat… hairdo , that I’ve ever seen
@119 – we also need to get rid of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
I wish I was as high as that McKotter dude right now.
I wish I was as high as that McKotter dude right now.
Ok, so this other dude finally explains what Maxine Waters was talking about. They want more underwriting fees to go to minority and women firms. Good grief, that took forever to straighten out.
@125. Sold. That means you’re not getting any more money so your fucking state employees will be allowed to work a full week. What a state. You just have to shake your head.
@124:
Congress should be asking GS and MS about trading prop with taxpayer funds. Why does GS and MS still employ any prop traders at all?
Can someone address what an idiot maxine waters is?
Can someone address what an idiot maxine waters is?
@125…how’s your real estate portfolio? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Twit.
Can someone address what an idiot maxine waters is?
@135
hmmm, did you bother reading any of the previous 134 posts?
going down the line, how much gov’t assistance have you received, and how many of you posters are complete assholes? i’d like to start with you guest 134?
@136
i’m in buy mode, bitch. how’s your studio in queens? or, was it bushwick?
What is with the “show of hands” nonsense? These are grown men-not schoolchildren..wait I forgot, we have to dumb down..
“we have ‘owned’ Merrill for 42 days now, and things have changed …. we are in charge now”
“We’ll need some oral.” — Barney Frank
this guy’s a dick and an idiot
Who is this goomba? After today I think I’m definitely going pro-choice.
Su curity!, Su curity!
This man has got to go.
welcome democracy, folks. equal representation under the law. that’s the way it goes. ~ 650,000 idiots get to pick one among them to go to capital hill. On the flip side, ~ 650,000 geniuses get to pick one, too.
For lunch, I believe Congresswoman Maxine Waters will dine on Crackers.
It amazes me these members of Congress flame the CEOs of these firms that most likely donated to their electoral campaigns last year, and passed the legislation that caused this credit crisis in the first place.
And what is wrong with Erin Burnett???
West coast vs. East coast here on dealbreaker. Sweet.
I don’t have much respect for many of these guys, but I’ll give them this; after Capuano’s rant, I cannot believe that one of them didn’t just stand up and walk out. I simply could not have sat there and listened to that stupid, malicious raving.
Rep. from MA,
Whatever you do make sure you do not hold your constituents that took no job, no income, no doc $400,000 mortgages responsible.
Scumbag. All of them scumbags. Blame everyone else.
These people should be placed in the back alleys of the Bronx after dark.
@139…nice…so you’re mom decided to co-sign? Just remember…try not to use any of your own money…that’s for suckers!
“I’m in buy mode, bitch” – Priceless
Here we go … again. Time for more crow.
@152- “you’re” mom and I am Sam I am green eggs and ham.
SPODE
The last guy described bankers’ practices well. Banks have converted into a Ponzi scheme whereby they accept taxpayer funds and then transfer the funds to shareholders through dividends or employees through “incentive pay”. Congress ought to not only bark but also bite: eject the banks’ officers, “claw back” incentive pay, reject banks’ taxpayer fund requests.
uh oh – grammar police – whoop whoop!
“These two entities—Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—are not facing any kind of financial crisis,” said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. “The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.”
THIS is the man who is going to dig us out of this mess? God help us!
@155, the Huffington Post called, they miss your ill-informed marxist rants.
@157, think that had to do with the fact he was in a relationship with an executive there?
Barney Frank is a despot
Maxine Waters sucks
My generation is phucked
Any other haikus???
Oh, by the way guys, now listening to these idiots on the House Financial Services Committee, I was wrong…you deserve what you are paid on Wall Street. No more class warfare from me! Please forgive me.
**throws tree-hugging idealistic hippie ideals into the trash***
Henry Kravis for Congress 2010
I HATE Maxine Waters!
SPODE
Velasquez is terrible.
@159 i thought it was 5-7-5. keep trying, though. you can do it!
@85 I like mustard on my biscuits mmmmmmmmm hmmmmmmmm
Pan to huge Banner on the top of the “USS K. Lewis” after Merrill deal:
” Mission Accomplished”
Maxine Waters sucks
My generation is phucked
Wanna buy a bong???
THERE, my haiku…
I also realized I would rather date an Erin Callanized woman than a silly hippie…I am learning, I am the acorn that becomes the oak!!
SPODE FOR CONGRESS 2010 as well…
Maxine W: “Do the chickens have large talons?”
K Lewis: “Huh?”
MW: “I said do the chickens have large talons?”
KL: “Boy, I didn’t understand a dam word you just said”
@158 – Yes, i think Barney Frank’s relationship had everything to do with his support of Fannie and Freddie. Is the press prohibited from disclosing this nonsense and Frank’s role in this mess? Also, can the Peoples Republic of Massachusetts please break away from the country? They contribute nothing. Knowing everything about Frank’s involvement in this crisis they still re-elected him – who are these people and what has he bribed them with?
These hearing are like a low brow WWF Wrestling Match — lots of tough talk and finger pointing, and insinuations, deridations, and verbal “body slams” by Congress- then hugs and kisses and handshakes for everyone afterward! “you know I had to say those things” wink wink! What a Show! What a seriously broken and sad period in American History!
Regarding Maxine ( aka Ike Turner ) an old southern axiom comes to mind. ” If we’d known it’d be this much trouble we’d a picked the cotton ourselves “
Regarding Maxine ( aka Ike Turner ) an old southern axiom comes to mind. ” If we’d known it’d be this much trouble we’d a picked the cotton ourselves “
to 59, come on, don’t be so mad. this is at least entertaining, good for the depressed crowd.
“I feel more like Corporel of the universe…not captain right about now”
Ken Lewis
Why congressmen keep embarrassing themselves by a series of “interrogating” wall street people? Obviously, they are totally not a match to those hedge fund managers, rating agency CEO’s, IB CEO’s.
Why not ask those hedge fund managers, rating agency CEO’s, IB CEO’s to show up at the same time, and let them debate about the crisis?
Mack looks exactly like Alf.
Ole Barney Fag was a lot less dangerous when he was focused on giving handjobs in the House gym
175 = homophobe
homophobe = closeted gay
Where’s Inglewood? and what’s a maxine water?
-The Guy from Malibu
Read Pecora’s Wall Street Under Oath. Nobody in this cast has the chops for their part.
Barney F–ng Rubble