[lbo-talk] Filthy Phil is back

Chuck Grimes cgrimes at rawbw.com
Sat Aug 22 12:43:28 PDT 2009


``In recent days yet another wealthy private customer of the Swiss-based banking conglomerate UBS admitted to criminal fraud in a growing parade of perp walks that could extend into the thousands. It is a case that threatens to ensnare former Sen. Phil Gramm, the Texas Republican who is vice chairman of UBS' investment banking business. Given the widespread involvement of UBS in what the Justice Department alleges were systematic efforts to violate US tax laws, it must be asked: Did Gramm as a top executive have no inkling about what was going on?'' Robert Scheer

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090831/scheer

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Phil Gramm engineered the banking de-regulating laws that helped create the credit boom and bust, while his wife was on the board of Enron. After passage of the de-regulation bills Gramm resigned the Senate. He got his job at UBS to position the bank to take maximum advantage of a deregulated US financial sector and the privacy of Swiss banking laws to commit tax fraud and to fatten himself and his cronies on tax free windfalls.

But I think there is more here. Gramm is a rightwing ideologue. I suspect if anybody over in DoJ and Treasury wanted to follow the money accounts back to the US, they would very likely find some it went in GOP accounts and individual Senate and House members campaign funds. They'll probably also find even more in banking and financial sector lobbies and associated trade group accounts.

I think there is a full circle here. Profits from playing with derivatives and credit default via UBS enter tax free accounts which are then re-circulated through an international money laundering scheme, and re-enter the US funding politically driven lobbies, associations, and campaign funds, which are in turn devoted to protecting the whole arrangement. Remember Gramm was John McCain's economic adviser until July 2008.

And I think it gets even worse. When the banking industry collapsed and demanded a government bailout with no strings, no investigation, no regulation, officials in the US Treasury knew all about UBS. How could they not?

Scheer ends with this:

``Well, what exactly did he [Gramm] know about those offshore tax shelters that caused a revenue shortfall of at least $100 billion that honest taxpayers have to make up?''

I remember last fall writing something on lbo, asking where is filthy Phil? Find Phil.

I think Scheer is asking the wrong question. I think the better question is, What did Poulson, Geithner and Bernanke know about UBS et al. and why in hell did they hand these same fraudulent, thieving motherfuckers billions with no questions asked?

CG



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