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Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Telegraph to Restore "TARP is a ‘Sham’" Story

Clusterstock has reported that the Telegraph is to restore the article that Ambrose Evans-Pritchard wrote about one Mark Patterson, a distressed investor who used TARP funding to acquire a bank in Michigan, then said not-so-nice things about the program at a conference in Qatar. He apparently then complained to the Telegraph which yanked the piece while it investigated.

This of course is another example of how trying to fight a story when you don’t have the facts on your side only gets you in deeper doo-doo. Why do people never learn?

I did receive the single most unprofessional e-mail I have ever seen (as in coming from a firm, not a Nigerian scamster) from one Joele Frank, Wilkinson Brimmer Katcher, which may or may not be Patterson’s PR firm (it did not state its relationship to him). I ignored it. but the folks at Zero Hedge had a bit of sport with them, and I do hope they post the correspondence.

Topics: Media watch

Email This Post Email This Post Posted by Yves Smith at 12:22 am

5 Comments » Links to this post

5 Comments:

  • bob says:
    May 20, 2009 at 2:24 am

    Great example of the “Streisand effect”

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect

  • attempter says:
    May 20, 2009 at 4:33 am

    The loutish arrogance of these persons is breathtaking, given how precarious their economic and perhaps physical existence is by now.

    Yet for the time being they can spit in the face of their government benefactor who just continues to bow and scrape, and demand veto power over the MSM which scrambles to comply.

    It’s always amazing where someone who has zero reality-based power can nevertheless force those who do have (potential) real power to obey. This can only happen where the ostensibly public-oriented power structure is rotted at the core, terminally decadent, utterly useless for moving forward, and therefore needing to be replaced.

    I did receive the single most unprofessional e-mail I have ever seen (as in coming from a firm, not a Nigerian scamster).

    I wish we could read it. I bet it makes the scamsters look like consummate professionals.

  • lolorebel says:
    May 20, 2009 at 6:09 am

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/search/?queryText=patterson&Search=Search

  • Minh says:
    May 20, 2009 at 8:52 am

    Congratulation to NC and ZH.

    This war of words is really virtual, isn’t it ?

    A little of black humor : If the law firm send you a letter in the box, don’t open it. You’re a pressman now.

  • getyourselfconnected says:
    May 20, 2009 at 5:21 pm

    This is my take on what the letter the Treasury sent to Mark Patterson entaile dand why he tried to recant. Purely speculation, ie, not REAL:

    To: Mark Patterson of MatlinPatterson
    From: The Treasury, you Punk
    Re: Stupid words, but we can save this thing yet!

    Mr. Patterson,
    We at the Treasury were deeply saddened to read your comments made in Qatar concerning the TARP program. While we bent over backwards to hand out money so you and your ilk could spend taxpayer money to enrich yourselves, we are rewarded with this kind of slap across the face. Here at the Treasury we have a saying:
    “Don’t’ Piss Down My Back and Tell Me It’s Raining!”
    Which yes, we stole from the “Outlaw Josey Wales”; regardless please be advised that we do not take kindly to being portrayed as ripping off the public, we are doing that, but to say so is poor taste.

    Luckily after review of your comment transcript we at the Treasury have a way this can be fixed. Please find the text of what your new comments to be made, no later than Friday Morinng May 15th, will include. Do not change or alter these words in any way:

    “On my comments in Qatar I would like to clarify some items that were fabricated, misstated, misquoted, and mischaracterized. While I did use the word “sham” what was not reported was that I stated that the TARP program was in fact a huge “SHAM-WOW” that was in effect sopping up the market ills of bad assets. This service is vital to the smooth flow of credit to households and small business. It has been reported that I said the taxpayers were getting “ripped off” but if you listen to the transcript closely you will hear that what I said was that losses for the taxpayer on TARP had been “WRITTEN OFF” as impossible because the deal they were getting was so awesome.

    Thanks in advance for any corrections and any removal of any archived web material that states otherwise.
    Mark Patterson”

    The Treasury trusts you will follow our guidelines as not to jeopardize the bank secondary offerings during this silly market bounce. Not that we are threatening you, but we do control the IRS and your MySpace page does include many “friends” of the female gender that are, how shall we say, of an age bracket that may become inconvenient should the FBI want to look into it. Not that we control the FBI.

    Thanks in Advance,
    The Treasury, you punk.

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