The Most Damning Internal Emails Of The Financial Crisis (PHOTOS)

In case you haven't heard, emails live forever. Which may mean that the full story of the financial crisis is lying dormant somewhere on a few forgotten servers in the bowels of Wall Street.

Until those emails surface, we're going to have be content with the below compilation of some of the most disturbing and damning internal emails of the financial collapse. Just last week, the WSJ reported that UBS employees reportedly referred to the products they were marketing as "vomit." This discussion actually occurred on an email thread titled "95pts Wine Spec. Best Ignanello since 1997" (hat tip to Reuters' Matt Goldstein.) Others in the below list worried they were "incompetent" -- or dreamed of retiring before the world economy collapsed.

Which internal email is the most damning? Check out our photos below and pick the worst of the batch. (If you have any other candidates, leave them in the comments section and we'll add them to the list.)

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Former Bear Stearns Execs Trash Their Own Funds

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Vote and Share Choose Your Top 5 Just Bad Taste Damning Now Make Your Own Top 5 And Share with Your Friends RANK: AVERAGE:  OUT OF 10 Mathew Tannin (pictured, in handcuffs) and Ralph Cioffi, two ex-hedge fund managers at Bear Stearns, were charged with fraud for misrepresenting the condition of two Bear hedge funds they managed. Here's one damning email discussing the funds' exposure to high-risk debt securities: "The subprime market is pretty damn ugly...If we believe the [CDO report is] ANYWHERE CLOSE to accurate I think we should close the funds now. The reason for this is that if [the CDO report] is correct then the entire subprime market is toast.''

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Comments

[politkal kos]

Our future has been spent. The bail out is like throwing water on a electrical fire. It will be a miracle if in 10 years if "real" unemployment falls below 10%. The middle class will be joining the ranks of the impoverished. If you have ever been to europe this is what our society will become. Some may like this others not. Our steady decline over the last 30 years from a great nation to a begger nation could have been avoided but greed triumphed over the public good .

hat tip to http://www.iamned.com good articles

The nation as a whole has changed morally and ethically for the worse and we are reaping what we have all sowed..

[josephXY]

Also You Tube videos exist forever. Fitting perfectly to those e-mails is for instance the
Peter Schiff video, a flashback of what the experts, pundits said in 06/07. With more than
1,5 million views it's obviously pretty popular, people wanting to hear again some of those
ludicrus forecasts and recommendations. An interest that's going to haunt those experts
gradually. It's almost fun by now, like in crime stories "whatever you say, it can be used against you."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2I0QN-FYkpw

[CulpeperMin]

Peter Schiff announced his candidacy for US Senator from CT.

[jsarets]

Get rich of destroy the global economy tryin'.

[Tunde15]

Hubris perpetrated by the "Best and Brightest." Why are they all Men? Groupthink, anyone?

[ImAliberal22]

Why is it so hard to find good, progressive leadership in America?

good articles for a slow news day: http://www.iamned.com

American needs help.

[SolarPowerGuy]

"In case you haven't heard, emails live forever. Which may mean that the full story of the financial crisis is lying dormant somewhere on a few forgotten servers in the bowels of Wall Street."

Which may also mean that somewhere, someone with something to hide is planning yet another Reichstag Fire / Ollie North Shredding Party / WTC collapse etc.

So hurry up and confiscate all of those email archives already!

[PathofTotality]

I will say that I saw none in "bad taste". I have to wonder what e-mails are flying around now:

Employee #1 to Employee #2: Yep, round two comin up. The same rules apply right?

[ResidualSelfImage]

The bad mortgages will climb when ARM's reset to a higher rate this coming year.

AG ERIC HOLDER'S TIES TO THE RNC
Holder reportedly received some
$2 million in compensation from C&B during his tenure, which coincided
with a number of high-profile cases against the Bush administration.

On its website, the company boasts more than a few such cases, in which
it worked for Bush et al. In nearly every one, and while Holder was happily
a partner in the firm, C&B defended GOP operatives--and also the
financial industry and Big Pharma. These, of course, are all the very players
responsible for the immense corruption of the US public sphere.

Check out the litany of litigation that C&B has been involved in, mostly on
the RNC side. Remember, these are the company's own proud claims.

Must we, then, still wonder why Eric Holder is a no-show on GOP election-rigging
and selective prosecutions?

The real question is why Obama would infect his administration with both Holder
and Greg Craig, both of whom are not merely politically tainted, but have acted as
defense agents for the Bush administration and the GOP more generally. (See
Simpson's article on Craig, which I think you may have sent around:
http://pubrecord.org/special-to-the-public-record/3263/white-house-should-craig/ ).
Can the Dems really be this clueless? I doubt it.

[vippy]

and do you really believe that McCain would have been better than Obama? Seems to me someone picks the candidates way ahead and then gears the press towards only two. Not much of a democracy here. Money selects our president. My hope is fading fast. I believe this country is hopeless.

[Jeff Kreisler - Huffpost Blogger]

These are awesome cheaters.
My fave was Jeff Skilling's in-court defense of his "shred the documents, they're on to us email." He said, under oath, he was "just being sarcastic." Ah, the old "Just Kidding" defense, pioneered in the 1952 case of Cooties v. No Give Backs.

GET RICH CHEATING - A Boston Globe Bestseller
"You'll be laughing all the way to the bank, assuming other cheaters haven't forced it into bankruptcy yet." - Rachel Maddow
"Catcher in the Rye for evildoers" - Penthouse Magazine
"A very funny book with a very timely message." - Terry Jones (Monty Python)
"Laugh out loud - roaring!" - CNBC
"A brilliant and brilliantly sustained satirical broadside." - Tony Hendra (National Lampoon)
http://GetRichCheating.com or http://tinyurl.com/ojfl3z

[DeepsyRascal]

I thought Americans do do sarcasm

[exhale09]

Who says Americans aren't tolerant?

Anyone see protesters outside of these Banks carrying hateful signs and wearing guns?

Now that's tolerance!

[AmericanDreamWarrior]

This is who the republicans and conservatives are trying to protect from the mean consumers and the bad ol govt regulators? Mmmmm hmmm!

Wonder if they paused for a moment to look through their tea leaves and the haze of their racist, bitter sour grapes to realize that they're being hurt just as much as the rest of us by these bottom dwellers, if not more so because they're too ignorant to realize when they're being taken for a ride.

The definition of madness: repeating the same behaviour but expecting different results. Apparently the old adage is true; history is bound to repeat itself when past lessons are forgotten. It took us 75 years to forget the disasters of free markets with no regulations. People by nature are reckless and greedy when their is nothing holding them back. So maybe to help avoid another full fledged depression we need to demand a few hundred pounds of flesh. Maybe if we saw headlines such as "Wallstreet Execs Get Fashion Makeover by Lawmakers. All the Rage, Orange Jump Suits" or better yet, "President Obama signs Executive Order Reinstating Federal Regulations".

Until then I'm considering closing out my 401k's and CD's, put it all in a coffee can and wait out this nightmare. I'm young and have time to rebuild but what about those that don't?

[DenverJJ]

Hubris is the social swine flu of this decade. Whether your a rap artist or a wall tycoon the only thing that make you different is where you get your street cred. You can buy from Harvard Stanford or Dartmouth or you can get it in Compton or Miami. But your the same beast friend you walk with that special disability, that sickness of hubris on the Hamptons or in halls D.C. You have your own slang and dress that makes you stand apart from the average. It is a not bad thing friend to want be above average for your social set, lead and seek some trappings of success. But whether your Kanye West or the Standard and Poors execs boosting funds for money, an jail Eron or MCI exec, you will do whatever it takes to be apart from humanity. You have the choosen the virus. Friend your sick. Out here in the cheap seat you look the same to me. "To hell with the rest of us....you say?"
You don't want to know what hell it is really about.
DenverJJ

[FastMovingCloud]

It sounds to me like evidence that they were aware they were bilking shareholders. That should be enough to prosecute, FINALLY!!! I heard Stuart Varney of Fox Business channel, no less, say he was shocked that no one went to jail over the shenanigans in the investment market. I'm with him on this one (not much else). Many someones should be in jail! And, Congress needs to reinstate Glass-Steigle[sp?] to separate commercial banking from investment banking. Just as it was needed after the crash of 1929 it is needed now!

[Chapmanp2]

Yet conservatives will just keep blindly shouting "free markets are NEVER wrong" It's their answer for everything & they'll drive US off a cliff to prove it...

[exhale09]

Why isn't Glenn Beck leading a million man hate march on Wall Street or to surround these Banks?

[LHoney]

This is the ultimate consequence of "It's not personal, it's business." We've become a nation of Mr. Potters and George Bailey has left the building.

[northstar11]

i wish there had been specific dates on those emails ---but 2006 is sufficient for my comment.

it seems every one connected with the sub prime mess knew it was going to explode

so i ask-- do you think it was co-incidence that hank paulseon showed up at treasury on may 30, 2006

is it even remotely possible he was not aware the bomb was fused and burning. do you think maybe he went there with an agenda and mission and plan ?