need to add title here

Credit Default Swaps

October 26, 2008 5:35 PM

Steve Kroft examines the complicated financial instruments known as credit default swaps and the central role they are playing in the unfolding economic crisis.

The Bet That Blew Up Wall Street
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by NAFRANK September 5, 2009 10:35 PM EDT
I would like 60 minuts to run a more comprehensive report on the causes of the Banking Crisis which answers the following questions:

1. President Bush and the Republican controlled congress had the power to re-peal the damaging aspects of the Commodities Futures Modernizaton Act. I would like to know why nothing was done from 2001-2006. 2. Please explain how raising the debt limit on investment banks in 2003 contributed to the wild speculation in real estate from 2003-2006.
3. Please explain why the financial regulators did not require banks to do proper due diligence when writing mortgages and loans. Why were banks allowed to write loans with no income verification and no money down. Why were banks allowed to move their liabilities off balance sheet and not keep proper capital requirements. These practices were un-presidented and exploded from 2003-2006. What regulatory structures changed from 2001-2008 that allowed this to occur. If it was Bill Clinton, why did President Bush just sit on the sidelines versus putting more regulation in place.
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by nokool-aid October 29, 2008 4:04 PM EDT
Pres. Wilson said in 1919, %u201CI am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is now controlled by its system of credit. We are no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.%u201D

On September 18 2008, McCain said, if elected, fire Cox for failing in his oversight of Wall Street. "The chairman of the SEC serves at the appointment of the president and, in my view, has betrayed the public''s trust, if I were president today, I would fire him."
McCain called for a 9/11 type investigation of CDS''s, naked short selling and other forms of Bear raiding in 2005 %u2013 not good for Goldman Sachs (GS).

Does anyone even think about why media is so against McCain in such an unprecedented way? How about that GS was the one to invest 4 times more in Obama than McCain for contributions and was his 2nd largest contributor? Or that GS was on top w/tremendous earnings? That if they would only cover their shorts how good it would be for the market and McCain? Or that Paulson let GS competitor Lehman Bros hit the cement and cripple the corp. debt market? Oil went to $150 and now is around 60 but we still pay over $3/gallon? Or that the Fed stopped its policy of raising rates to slow the debt market? Or that Paulson IS Goldman and he knows very well that the market and the press can cause a population to vote against the incumbent?
Coffee Not Kool-Aid
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by heyyour October 29, 2008 2:36 PM EDT
60 Minutes,
Your two pieces on Wall Street Credit Default Swaps are informative. But like the Congress, who passed the law, President Clinton, who signed the law and the Bankers who obeyed the law, 60 Minutes as a major player in the news media institution is culpable and part of the problem.

After all, expert reporting on the roots of an graph and corruption, failed and cheating institutions at America''s expense AFTER THE FACT, is like PBS exposis on the Civil War.

But, 60 Minutes sells quite well and is entertaining.

Keep up your bush league work rather than fulfilling your institutional duty. I%u2019m sure your celebrity will continue.

Hey Your
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by gubbly33 October 28, 2008 8:18 PM EDT
The SEC hides behind the Freedom of Information ACT, when anyone got close to exposing the culprits. Why is that?

Kyle Ramsay
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by mbhiii October 28, 2008 7:10 PM EDT
ACORN had absolutely nothing to do with the crash. They registered poor people to vote, and fired and reported anyone working for them who did it fraudulently. The current financial crisis is way beyond the scope of a economic fly-speck like ACORN who had nothing to do with credit default swaps (CDSs). The problem now seems Low Information Voters (LIVs) spinning convoluted stories about a story so convoluted already they have no grasp of it at all. "Liar loans" didn''t bring down the economy; huge unregulated side-bets on them did.
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by franssusan October 28, 2008 6:43 PM EDT
No one will talk about the REAL reason for the financial melt down. The blame should go to the beginning of the problem: the "liar loan" mortgages that were made to people who KNEW they could NOT afford them and bought more house than they could afford. That''s the root of this problem. Face it. Wall Street was trying to make lemonade out of the lemons they were handed. After all, their job is to make money, not lose it. Slimy groups like ACORN force government to force banks to make loans they knew wouldn''t work. Face the facts & stop the convoluted stories that put the blame everywhere but where it belongs!
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by mbhiii October 28, 2008 6:09 PM EDT
Financial derivatives, like "credit default swaps" on mortgage backed securities, were specifically deregulated by Phil Gramm, et al, in the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000. Though many Democrats signed it, the bill was pushed through by the GOP with Alan Greenspan cheer-leading. Until July 18, 2008, Gramm was a senior economic adviser to John McCain''s presidential campaign. In 1996, McCain chaired Gramm''s presidential campaign. So, just like WMDs, this crisis sits squarely on the GOP, and McCain''s, doorstep.
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by brockowitz October 28, 2008 5:28 PM EDT
If you like this video then everyone should watch this video as well: http://www.cnbc.com//id/27218295

Additionally, read this article at the New York Times dated September 30, 1999: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0DE7DB153EF933A0575AC0A96F958260&sec=&spon=&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
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by iBanker October 28, 2008 2:16 PM EDT
THIS IS A GREAT OPINION:

''60 Minutes'' Financial Crisis Expose Ignores Election Ramifications

By Noel Sheppard
October 27, 2008

With nine days left before Election Day, "60 Minutes" aired a segment Sunday evening addressing a complex investment tool at the heart of the current financial crisis without fully explaining the presidential campaign ramifications behind the laws that made the market meltdown almost inevitable.
Despite accurately calling credit default swaps "The Bet That Blew Up Wall Street," CBS didn''t properly inform viewers that George W. Bush had absolutely nothing to do with the Clinton-signed legislation that deregulated them, and that frequent campaign statements by Barack Obama and Joe Biden blaming the current financial crisis on Bush economic policies are therefore completely false.
The producers also chose not to expose the key Democrats -- most notably House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Cali.) and House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) -- that voted in favor of this legislation back in 2000 but have in recent weeks dishonestly blamed President Bush for the current crisis.
Instead, CBS''s Steve Kroft offered viewers a very general and nonpartisan political background to the passage of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 (video embedded right).
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by edmcphee-2009 October 28, 2008 12:41 PM EDT
It took Steve 10 minutes to explain what happen and
congress and the white house both democrates and republicans involved. Republicans wrote the bill
and a Democrate signed it ( Clinton) on Dec 21 2000
When nobody was looking and no debate. This caused
the down fall of Enron and now maybe Wall Street.Congress doesn''t want you to know what caused
this because now their all rich it will be a cover up.
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