Sunday, December 15, 2013

Ramon Rasco, chairman of US Century Bank, finally resigns … by gimleteye

It's about time … Rasco is one of Miami-Dade's top apparatchiks who mightily profited from the models of growth that sowed sprawl across the county. He was the organizing architect of the failed Homestead Air Force Base redevelopment (along with assistants like lead GOP attorney/lobbyist, Miguel De Grandy) and a banker/ attorney who founded US Century Bank with Sergio Pino. The bank's fortunes were built on the shaky political foundations of the housing boom and barely managed to stay afloat during the bust. US Century Bank was the insider piggy bank of Miami-Dade County. A ProPublica investigative report wrote, "The rise and fall of U.S. Century, while certainly more extreme than most banks, exemplifies the fast-and-loose banking culture that led to the financial crisis, which continues to drag down the global economy. It also epitomizes both the failure to regulate the banking sector during the pre-crisis boom years and the slipshod approach to the bailout that followed the bust. Above all, it's about losers and winners. The losers are taxpayers and local residents grappling with the ill effects of suburban sprawl. The winners appear to be a group of wealthy and politically connected businessmen who created a bank that served as their own corporate ATM, funneling tens of millions of dollars to ventures in which they had a stake."

An Eye On Miami's anonymous commenters once wrote that if you were a middle level manager at Miami-Dade County or anyone with a connection, you could get a "special" expedited loan. That's all gone, now. The bank was the largest recipient of TARP (that's federal) aid in Florida. Complaining about the Perez/ Genting Art Museum recently, collector Rosa de la Cruz said, along the lines, that people in Miami are afraid to speak out.

Federal bank regulators should have shut this bank down, years ago. Why regulators didn't demand Rasco's resignation, long ago, is a mystery.

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

Love 'apparatchik'. You mean like bill Johnson, terry Murphy, and john Renfrow?

Anonymous said...

Tell Rosa that the reason people don't speak out is because they're afraid of losing there job, or if self-employed, afraid of losing customers. Unfortunately there's no diversity in South Florida's economy: it's all about development. If you speak out against any of development's apparatchiks, you will lose your job.

Anonymous said...

You believe that Terry Murphy, Bill Johnson and John Renfrow are communists? Definitions:
A member of a Communist apparat.
....is a Russian colloquial term for a full-time, professional functionary of the Communist Party or government,

Anonymous said...

Rosa and Carlos de la Cruz speak the truth.

Anonymous said...

Ramon Rasco is one of the most straightforward, civic minded, decent and honorable men ever. You should check your conscience before "raising false witness".

Gimleteye said...

Eye On Miami was virtually alone in covering US Century Bank, until South Florida Business Journals picked up the trail (after an excellent piece by ProPublica's Jake Bernstein, a former Miami New Times journalist).

Anonymous said...


"raising false witness": Are you kidding? If you are not, did you get a loan from US Century or do you work for them or Pino's plumbing company?

That is the funniest comment I've read all day. "You can't fix stupid".

Anonymous said...

http://www.propublica.org/article/florida-bank-used-as-atm-by-insiders-won-tarp-loan-but-now-teeters

Anonymous said...

I'm not stupid at all. I know the man well. I also know some of the people who post here and know they would like to destroy Rasco for their own benefit. I've lived in this town for over 60 years and know where many skeletons are buried.

Anonymous said...

Rasco presided over a bank with a pending Bank Secrecy Act violation fine – "disclosed in both shareholder documents and the FSI reports". Nice.

Anonymous said...

I have not met all but a few of these "apparatchik" and they have been scums without exception.

Anonymous said...

Wasn't US Century Bank the scam that gave dozens of no document loans to connected insiders who were almost exclusively Cuban?
Didn't most of the loans go bad?
Wasn't the bank investigated by various government watchdogs?

miles said...

Isn't this exactly the kind of "Communistic" behavior that these same Cubans are always railing on Castro about?

Anonymous said...

People are scared because of the Law firm that Rasco leads. Very powerful and scary attorneys.

Anonymous said...

It was political connections in DC that kept US Century from being taken over by the FDIC.

Anonymous said...

Didn't the FDIC demand that US Century be bought by new investors? What happened to all the loans to insiders?

Anonymous said...

I cringe every time I hear the name Rasco.

Anonymous said...

Investigation? Massive insider loans? Loans still outstanding?