The unbelievably impertinent Rahm Emanuel

[marmar]

(In These Times) In an unprecedented move on Wednesday, the Chicago City Council rebuked Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s plan to voluntarily pay banks $106 million in penalties to terminate the city’s remaining interest rate swap agreements. In another unprecedented move, I attempted to explain to my mother what had happened.

I told her, in a mix of English and our native Urdu, that the city had entered into these bad deals that had cost taxpayers millions of dollars, and that a group of us have been calling on the mayor to sue the banks to get the money back. I also told her that, instead of suing the banks, the mayor was trying to pay them all of the future payments for the next 15 years right now in order to get out of the deals.

My mother was shocked. “So instead of paying what he would over the next 15 years, he’s just paying them now?” she asked. I nodded. “That’s just more money for the banks,” she replied. “Why would he do that?”

Emanuel claims that voluntarily paying the banks would have helped the city reduce risk. However, the biggest risk with these swaps is that if the city is forced to terminate them in the future, it could be forced to pay up to $106 million in penalties. By voluntarily paying those penalties now, the city wouldn’t have reduced risk; it would have realized it.

In a press conference on Tuesday, Alderman Carlos Rosa said, “It’s like claiming that you’ve lowered the risk of your car getting stolen tomorrow by handing your car keys to a thief today.” .................(more)

http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/18774/rahm-emanuel-wall-street-interest-rate-swaps

[mikeysnot]

1. So glad I did not vote for this stroke.

Paying his paymasters with my sons education money...

[Rex]

2. Rahm is a risk to Chicago.

WTH is he doing?

[Ed Suspicious]

3. Enriching his shadow constituency.

[Rex]

4. Just so obvious about it too, like he has full immunity to ruin a city.

Sick, I am glad he was rebuked...what a corrupt POS.

[WhaTHellsgoingonhere]

5. Carlos Rosa rocks!

26 years old and smacking down the mayor at every opportunity while the others cower to protect their jobs.

Carlos will be our mayor someday.

?w=676

[alcibiades_mystery]

7. I'd bet on Pawar from the 47th

[betterdemsonly]

6. The US government did that to the entire country when it bailed out the banks

and didn't break them up. Rahm undoubtedly played a role in that bullshit as well.