You pay, they play

Another version of what is going on here...

The Fed has even decided to buy treasuries, which is the absolute definition of "printing money" since it amounts to one part of the government funding the other part of the government.

Um, except the Fed is not part of the government. The Fed is privately owned. So our Treasury, the part of this equation that IS part of the government, the part that WE own, is selling US to the privately owned Fed. That is closer to the definition of PROSTITUTION, actually.

All of this money is going to land somewhere. What we are going to see is another bout of riptide inflation, where some parts of the economy (such as wages and housing prices) are in deflation, while other parts are inflating. My guess where the money is going to land? Oil prices again. It's already begun. Put all that money into the hands of speculators and they have to park it somewhere.

Inflation, commodities bubble. That seems to be the consensus around these parts.

The key difference here is between "paid off" and "wiped out". "Paid off" means the full value gets paid back (minus whatever inflation the US has, which may be a lot). " Wiped out", on the other hand, is what would occur if private banks, firms and investors were forced to take their own losses. In that case, when the full value of the investor or firm was gone, any remaining value would simply disappear. If a bank goes bankrupt owing $200 billion, and the bankruptcy windups leave only $100 billion of proceeds, then the remaining $100 billion goes away. Yes, that $100 billion may wipe out some other people, but it's done. It's over with. It's finished. You can't get blood out of a stone, and when a firm or person is wiped out, they're wiped out.

Paid off being contrary to public policy, which is of course exactly why our leaders have chosen this route. Because it enriches the Fed, which is privately owned.

As Christopher Story covers in his latest report, the primary motive here is to prevent -- evidently at ALL COSTS -- these corrupt institutions from going into bankruptcy, which is what would happen if they were forced to wipe out their losses. No wipe outs. Because once in bankruptcy, the Bankruptcy Trustee would have unlimited powers to investigate what's been going on. This would expose hundreds, perhaps thousands of unseemly arrangements like this:

Dodd's wife a former director of Bermuda-based IPC Holdings, an AIG controlled company

From 2001-2004, Jackie Clegg Dodd served as an "outside" director of IPC Holdings, Ltd., a Bermuda-based company controlled by AIG. IPC, which provides property casualty catastrophe insurance coverage, was formed in 1993 and currently has a market cap of $1.4 billion and trades on the NASDAQ under the ticker symbol IPCR. In 2001, in addition to a public offering of 15 million shares of stock that raised $380 million, IPC raised more than $109 million through a simultaneous private placement sale of 5.6 million shares of stock to AIG - giving AIG a 20% stake in IPC. (AIG sold its 13.397 million shares in IPC in August, 2006.)

Clegg was compensated for her duties to the company, which was managed by a subsidiary of AIG. In 2003, according to a proxy statement, Clegg received $12,000 per year and an additional $1,000 for each Directors' and committee meeting she attended. Clegg served on the Audit and Investment committees during her final year on the board.

IPC paid millions each year to other AIG-related companies for administrative and other services. Clegg was a diligent director. In 2003, the proxy statement report, she attended more than 75% of board and committee meetings. This while she served as the managing partner of Clegg International Consultants, LLC, which she created in 2001, the year she joined the board of IPC. (See Dodd's public financial disclosure reports with the Senate from 2001-2004 here.)

How cozy. Surely our good congress people, their spouses and friends, the Clintons, the Bushes, etc. etc. do not want see each other harmed by having all their corruption exposed to the sunlight. So they're busy scratching each others' backs with our money. Anything to keep the lid on another day.