Transparency:
via credit write-downs’ Edward Harrison and Reuter’s Matthew Goldstein
It could take until November 2018 to get the full story behind the U.S. bailout of insurance giant American International Group because of an action taken last year by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
In May, the SEC approved a request by AIG to keep secret an exhibit to a year-old regulatory filing that includes some of the details on the most controversial aspect of the AIG bailout: the funneling of tens of billions of dollars to big banks like Societe Generale, Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank and Merrill Lynch.
The SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance, in granting AIG’s request for confidential treatment, said the “excluded information” will not be made public until Nov. 25, 2018, according to a copy of the agency’s May 22 order.
The SEC said the insurer had demonstrated the information in the exhibit, called Schedule A, “qualifies as confidential commercial or financial information.”
The expiration date for the SEC order falls on the 10th anniversary of Federal Reserve of New York’s decision to provide emergency financing to an entity set up to specifically acquire some $60 billion in collateralized debt obligations from 16 banks in the United States and Europe.
My Fellow Americans.
The last three decades have been marked by outrageous scams and frauds throughout our financial system. This is not a partisan political issue and has consumed both Democrat and Republican administrations and Congresses alike.
As of today, that era has ended.
To those who believe that blowing bubbles, making homes unaffordable for the common man in this country or driving stock prices to ridiculous levels based on hype and false claims is a means to become wealthy, your days of being able to strip the wealth of the common American have come to an end.
Those federally-chartered institutions that promote a “bubble economy” based on unreasonable and unsustainable levels of debt will find that this administration will do everything in our power to revoke those charters. This includes but is not limited to The Federal Reserve.
To those who have ripped people off, including those who marketed and sold worthless securities, those who claimed to have “protection” against market events when they knew the person they bought from had no money to pay, or who worked together to make loans and sales to people through the use of various lies, such as falsely overstating incomes, you will soon be facing a jury of your peers.
I am today directing the FBI and Department of Justice to open and begin investigations, starting at the top. Each and every one of the large financial institutions in this country, including the banks, GSEs and their officials that operate under a federal charter or banking license will face a forensic audit. We will identify and bring to justice all of those who have robbed this economy of its vitality and stolen your futures. Where possible we will claw back every penny of these individuals and firms’ wealth so as to provide you with whatever compensation we can recover. Those firms who have committed wrongdoing will be broken up and their officials barred from serving in the banking or securities industries in the future.
Our own administration and the people in it will be subject to this investigation, as will all members of Congress, the lobbying firms and interests that interact with our government. There will be no sacred cows and no rocks that will be left unturned.
We will investigate homebuilders, realtors, appraisers and mortgage brokers. We will look into the FHA, Ginnie Mae, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and determine exactly how all of these loss-producing loans came to be made. Where we can identify persons or corporate procedures that led investors, firms or people to be misled, we will bring charges.
The days of theft and fraud from the American public, followed by demands to be bailed out when these scams and schemes reach the end of their rope, are over. Civil and criminal penalties have and do exist for these offenses, and they will be enforced to the fullest extent of the law.
All Americans deserve to be able to invest with confidence and rely on the statements and publications put forward to them. Americans deserve to be told the truth. When Americans are ripped off, they deserve justice. Beginning today, every American will receive exactly that.
The days of the “Wild West” on Wall Street and K Street alike are over.
Thank you
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