Don't you love it

[BikerDude]

When they get caught.
Secret recordings tell us what we already knew really.

The Federal Reserve is among the most powerful institutions in the nation and also among the more private. But new audio tapes secretly recorded by a former employee provide a rare look into meetings involving officials from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

In them, you hear officials considering how to oversee Goldman Sachs, and specifically, they discuss a financial transaction that one official describes as "legal but shady."

The recordings were made in 2012 by Carmen Segarra, who at the time was a New York Fed bank examiner, charged with making sure banks followed the rules. She felt the Fed was going too easy on a powerful and very well-connected investment bank. She was later fired. She sued the Fed, which made some news.

Segarra recorded 46 hours of meetings using a small audio recorder on a key chain. She gave those recordings to Jake Bernstein, an investigative reporter from ProPublica, and to the public radio program, This American Life.

The concern being raised by the recordings, Bernstein tells NPR's Steve Inskeep, is that regulators may be too cozy with the banks they oversee.

"These are people who work inside the banks. They see these people every day, and they need to obtain the information from these banks, and it's easier to obtain the information if you're friendly and if you have a good relationship, but sometimes that can slide to deference," Bernstein says.

Goldman Sachs says that the concerns raised in Segarra's examination were off base.

Of course the Fed fired her.

http://www.propublica.org/article/carmen-segarras-secret-recordings-from-inside-new-york-fed
http://www.propublica.org/article/so-who-is-carmen-segarra-a-fed-whistleblower-qa

[DigitalBuddha]

"If it keeps on rainin', levee's goin' to break,
When The Levee Breaks I'll have no place to stay. "

- Led Zepplin

[BikerDude]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQCwSqyaRo0

Can you hear me, that when it rains and shines
(When it rains and shines)
It's just a state of mind?
(When it rains and shines)
Can you hear me, can you hear me?

-Beatles

Have you seen the bigger piggies
In their starched white shirts?
You will find the bigger piggies
Stirring up the dirt
Always have clean shirts to play around in

In their styes with all their backing
They don't care what goes on around
In their eyes there's something lacking
What they need's a damn good whacking

-Beatles
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4WWmHRO5-A

[jgiffin]

Breaking news: "Regulators may be too cozy with the banks they oversee." Film at 11.