Usury on Top of Usury - Goldman Sachs Stiffs New Jersey

[abduLMaria]

An interesting article in Bloomberg.

New Jersey is paying $21,000 a day for ... well, basically, to siphon public money to Goldman Sachs.

"New Jersey taxpayers are being saddled with a bill of about $657,000 a month from Bank of Montreal for an interest-rate swap approved by state officials and linked to bonds that were never sold."

"The payments, which work out to $21,892 a day for three years, show how elected and appointed officials failed taxpayers by agreeing to financial strategies they didn't fully understand. New Jersey spent $21.3 million in 2008 to exit three contracts signed when James Florio and James McGreevey were governors. The state's transportation trust fund is giving almost $1 million a month to a Goldman Sachs Group Inc. partnership in an agreement linked to bonds that were redeemed."

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... qnk&pos=15

"New Jersey isn't alone. Borrowers from Massachusetts to California are struggling with billions of dollars in swap penalties and losses at the same time that budget deficits expand to an estimated $350 billion in 2010 and 2011, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

The derivatives, mostly interest-rate swaps used to exchange fixed payments for variable rates, have grown to as much as $300 billion annually, the Alexandria, Virginia-based Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board said in an April report, citing information from market participants.

Derivatives have created "unprecedented financial stress" for some of the 500 municipal issuers that sold variable-rate debt and purchased swaps from banks to lock in borrowing costs, according to an October report by Moody's Investors Service. The biggest users of the arrangements are Pennsylvania, California, Texas and Tennessee."

time to kick the money changers out of our temple.