http://www.rollingstone.com/politics...0110411?page=2
Quote:
The Macks make for an interesting couple. John, a Lebanese-American nicknamed "Mack the Knife" for his legendary passion for firing people, has one of the most recognizable faces on Wall Street, physically resembling a crumpled, half-burned baked potato with a pair of overturned furry horseshoes for eyebrows. Christy is thin, blond and rich — a sort of still-awake Sunny von Bulow with hobbies. Her major philanthropic passion is endowments for alternative medicine, and she has attained the level of master at Reiki, the Japanese practice of "palm healing." The only other notable fact on her public résumé is that her sister was married to Charlie Rose.
It's hard to imagine a pair of people you would less want to hand a giant welfare check to — yet that's exactly what the Fed did. Just two months before the Macks bought their fancy carriage house in Manhattan, Christy and her pal Susan launched their investment initiative called Waterfall TALF. Neither seems to have any experience whatsoever in finance, beyond Susan's penchant for dabbling in thoroughbred racehorses. But with an upfront investment of $15 million, they quickly received $220 million in cash from the Fed, most of which they used to purchase student loans and commercial mortgages. The loans were set up so that Christy and Susan would keep 100 percent of any gains on the deals, while the Fed and the Treasury (read: the taxpayer) would eat 90 percent of the losses. Given out as part of a bailout program ostensibly designed to help ordinary people by kick-starting consumer lending, the deals were a classic heads-I-win, tails-you-lose investment.
Cliffs: The Fed gives a group called 'Waterfall TALF a $220m loan (with ultra low interest rate) to invest. This group was formed by two women who have no other qualification other than being the wives of powerful figures in the banking industry. Important caveat: the fed + treasury dept would absorb 90% of any losses, and the wives would take home 100% of profits.
Even without that caveat it would still be essentially giving these wives money, but with it this becomes simply disgustingly selfish activity.
Pretty ****ing outrageous if you ask me.
Last edited by STA654; 04-15-2011 at 10:23 PM.