Ace of Spades
AIG
Biggest insurer in the world and biggest bailout welfare recipient. NY Fed honored its dud CDS contracts as a covert rescue to counterparties like Goldman, Deutsche Banks, and Soc Gen. New management allowed to defy government plan to break up the company and sell pieces to pay off taxpayers.
Ace of Clubs
Countrywide
Biggest and most predatory major subprime originator
Ace of Diamonds
Goldman Sachs
The best managed firm on Wall Street. When it ceased being a partnership in 1999, it turned a well oiled machine towards more aggressive and systematic exploitation of customers.
Ace of Hearts
Magnetar
Secretive Chicago hedge fund that used a large-scale CDO program to bet against the housing market. Conservative estimates indicate it drove demand for over 50% of subprime lending in 2006.
King of Spades
Robert Rubin
Goldman Sachs Co-chairman. Then, as Treasury Secretary recommended repeal of Glass-Steagall and keeping derivatives unregulated. Capped it off by helping to run Citigroup into the ground, for which he was paid millions.
King of Clubs
Hank Paulson
Treasury Secretary,gave away farm to banks in bailouts during crisis and bumrushed Congress to do it- while keeping his buddies in the know
King of Diamonds
Ben Bernanke
Repeatedly asserted that subprime was contained.
King of Hearts
Larry Summers
As Treasury Secretary, Larry Summers Pushed to deregulate CDS precrisis and during crisis wanted to sprinkle “magical liquidity dust” in bailouts to banks
Queen of Spades
Mary Schapiro
Chair of SEC, Continued “neither confirm nor deny” settlements and refused meaningful prosecution.
Queen of Clubs
Erin Callan
CFO Lehman,Signed off on flawed accounting weeks before bankruptcy
Queen of Diamonds
Ina Drew
Ina Drew, former CIO of JPMorgan Chase, oversaw the “hedge” that cost them $6 billion.
Queen of Hearts
Kathryn Wylde
Deputy Chair of NY Fed Board of Directors. Shouted down 1st mortgage settlement.
Jack of Spades
Jimmy Cayne
CEO Bear Stearns. Played bridge high while his firm became first investment bank to fail since Drexel, thanks to bad subprime bets.
Jack of Clubs
Jamie Dimon
“CEO JPMorgan Chase and Chair of NY Fed. Conflict, what conflict?
Fights aggressively and successfully against bank regulation”
Jack of Diamonds
Greg Lippman
Deutsche Bank trader, Gleefully shorted your house as patient zero of massively unstable CDS and CDO market.
Jack of Hearts
Lloyd Blankfein
CEO Goldman Sachs, Vampire Squid King. Admitted Goldman did things that ‘were clearly wrong and we regret’ but hasn’t changed behavior. Claimed to be doing “god’s work”.
10 of Spades
Stan O’Neal
Former CEO of Merrill Lynch. Received $161 million in compensation when he left. Shareholders were not so lucky.
10 of Clubs
Chris Dodd and Barney Frank
Congress, stuffed themselves at trough of Fannie and Freddie and created loophole ridden regulation to make system even more obscure
10 of Diamonds
Chuck Prince
CEO of Citigroup,Said in July 2007 Citigroup was “still dancing”. Retired 4 months later from MBS and CDO losses, keeping a $38million pay package.
10 of Hearts
Ken Lewis
CEO Bank of America, cluelessly acquired failed firms leading to massive taxpayer expense.
9 of Spades
Phil Gramm
Wrote and passed the laws enabling toxic mortgages and credit default swaps.
9 of Clubs
Joe Cassano
AIG Exec, constructed 500b portfolio of CDS without any meaningful capital, destroying AIG and triggering crisis
9 of Diamonds
Dick “Gorilla” Fuld
CEO Lehman, Oversaw Lehman bankruptcy, was named Conde Nast worst American CEO of all time.
9 of Hearts
Angelo Mozilo
CEO of Countrywide, Ran biggest mortgage lender, writing billions of bad loans while dispensing special favors to members of Congress
8 of Spades
Repo 105
Accounting gimmick used by Lehman to make balance sheet look $50 billion prettier than it really was.
8 of Clubs
Off-balance sheet vehicles
Enron’s favorite technique, adopted by the banks. Move the bad where people aren’t looking.
8 of Diamonds
Extend and Pretend
The practice of allowing businesses (but not individuals) to renegotiate defaulted loans in order to avoid taking losses on the books.
8 of Hearts
Mark-to-Make-Believe
Out and out lying about how much your instruments are worth in order to avoid looking insolvent.
7 of Spades
2005 Bankruptcy Reform Act
Good for bankers, bad for people. Prevents judges from discharging private student loans and other debts.
7 of Clubs
Not regulating CDS as insurance
Enabled high-stakes betting on company and country credit. Created interconnected web that helped bring down economy.
7 of Diamonds
J.O.B.S. Act
B.S. part is right. Does not create jobs. SEC commissioner Mary Schapiro said ‘it would eliminate important protections for investors’. Then Congress passed it overwhelmingly.
7 of Hearts
Erosion and end of Glass-Steagall
Why worry about megabanks? What could go wrong?
6 of Spades
Banker bonuses after bailout
After blowing up the global economy in 2008 and requiring massive taxpayer-funded rescues, major banks saw fit to pay all time record bonuses in 2009 and 2010.
6 of Clubs
The Revolving Door
The people who “regulate” big banks are the same people who made millions off them: Robert Rubin, Hank Paulson, Mark Patterson
6 of Diamonds
IBG/ YBG
“I’ll be gone. You’ll be gone.” Wall Street’s short-term mantra. Bankers work for fees and bonuses, often against clients’ longterm interests
6 of Hearts
Too Big to Fail
Big banks take big risks with others’ money. If risks pay off, their profits skyrocket. If not, government bails them out. Either way, 1% wins, 99% loses.
5 of Spades
Failing upwards
How to succeed by screwing up. Failing, taking severance and then a new plum job. Only available to elite few.
5 of Clubs
Leverage & Looting
Strategy to extract as much as possible from the system of unconstrained government guarantees of Wall Street and banks.
5 of Diamonds
Shorting against your clients
Wall Street bets against its own clients, referring to some as “muppets” and “dumb money,” “ripping the face off” the people they’re supposed to serve
5 of Hearts
Predatory Lending
Steering the poor and others into the most costly loans they cannot afford, ultimately bankrupting many.
4 of Spades
CDS (Credit Default Swap)
Unregulated insurance used by Wall Street to make huge speculative bets, creating a web of interlocking risks that led to the collapse of AIG and municipal insurers.
4 of Clubs
CDO, synthetic CDO, CDO+
Increasingly elaborate financial engineering to earn fees and profits and shift risk and losses to the “dumb money”.
4 of Diamonds
Auction Rate Securities
Good as cash, except when you need it most.
4 of Hearts
Option ARMs
Most egregious form of mortgage-related predatory lending. Pushed on the most vulnerable to make it appear they could afford to borrow more., frequently resulting in foreclosure and bankruptcy.
3 of Spades
Rating Agency Models
Designed to allow investment banks to issue junk as AAA. Even when errors were found, no need to fix them.
3 of Clubs
Efficient Market Hypothesis
An economic theory, with no empirical support, that was used as an argument to remove financial regulation
3 of Diamonds
Shareholder Value
A movement which created short-termism and allowed corporate raiders to claim they were adding value
3 of Hearts
Value-at-Risk (VaR)
Risk measurement which assumes nothing ever changes. Led traders to say things like “once in a million years happened five days in a row”.
2 of Spades
SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission)
Weak regulator which routinely destroyed records of investigations, sometimes right before the investigator went to work for the regulated.
2 of Clubs
NY Fed (Federal Reserve Bank of New York)
Stopped regulating primary dealers in 1992. Its Large Bank Supervision found nothing to worry about in the runup to the crisis. Head of NY Fed Tim Geithner not only bailed out US and foreign banks, but also failed to impose any pay restrictions in connection with bailouts.
2 of Diamonds
OCC (Office of the Comptroller of the Currency)
Supposed to regulate banks but actually coddles them.
2 of Hearts
The Treasury
Government branch that works to
protect the banks from regulation or prosecution.
Joker
Alan Greenspan
Argued that corporations, including banks, would act in their own best interest and therefore could be trusted
Joker
Tim Geithner
moved from spokesperson for private banks as head of NY Fed to enabler of private banks for US Government
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