Ever since the financial catastrophe of 2007-08, Goldman Sachs has been hypervigilant when it comes to the media. Many like myself have been complained about, and rudely denied access. The blogosphere has been patrolled 24/7 so that critics can be promptly pounced on.
Now we know why.
Yesterday's bombshell announcement that Goldman was charged with fraud by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is hardly surprising. This is Wall Street's last survivor, and it is about to be ordered off the island too, so to speak.
The others disappeared or were forced into shotgun marriages. All are dogged by lawsuits and under investigation by the world's largest law firm, the U.S. Department of Justice. Many more cases are under investigation.
In a statement, Goldman said, "The SEC's charges are completely unfounded in law and fact and we will vigorously contest them and defend the firm and its reputation."
The SEC's statement alleges the fraud arose around an issue of subprime debt instruments in 2007. Bad enough this junk was questionably rated, but Goldman collected $15 million in fees to sell this stuff to investors without telling them another one of their clients, the big hedge fund Paulson & Co., was on the other side of the trade. Worse yet, that hedge fund had helped sandbag the other investors by helping to select debts that were likeliest to default. Goldman did not disclose this conflict of interest to other investors, the SEC claims.
The hedge fund was run by billionaire John Paulson, but he has not been charged because Goldman was responsible for disclosure to other investors, not Paulson (not to be confused with very rich Henry Paulson who ran Goldman before becoming Bush's Treasury Secretary).
Like AIG and so many other shenanigans, the deal took place outside U.S. borders, in London. Charged by the SEC was a 31-year-old Goldman vice-president, Fabrice Tourre.
The meltdown, which destroyed many lives and businesses and wounded countries, represented the confluence of government incompetence, immoral people and systemic corruption.
Goldman Sachs deserves to be separated from its taxpayer-backed deposit-taking incarnation, which was a lifeline extended by Republicans along with a big fat bailout of itself and its biggest accounts receivable, AIG.
Lastly, bankers should forever be separated from special access to Washington and the White House so that regulators and oversight can remain independent, which was not the case under Bush libertarianism.
This case, while far from over, certainly restores a bit of confidence in the law and that perhaps it will be applied against the richest, most plugged-in people in the world.
This is posturing for Nov midterms.
Memba all the GS money Obama happily took for his "historic" run for POTUS?
Prediction: GC will contribute handsomely to BHO again and he will take the money again.
At the worst, Lloyd Blankfein might have to resign, and they might get some financial slap on the wrist. BFD. It will be business as usual after that.
It's funny how Community Banks were able to escape toxic mortgages - because they didn't encourage mortgage applicants to overstate their qualifications and checked for proof of truthfulness - as they should and did; unlike large banks and mortgage brokers, who made their money by rabidly approving mortgage loans to pass on to Wall Street. And, Wall Street, in turn, churning them over and over for commissions and fees.
Deregulation of the financial industry was the problem, not the Fed offering insurance (at a cost to the borrower) to encourage loans to qualified borrowers.
If the government could regulate the sale of alcohol, they could regulate the sale of financial instruments for reliability. Imagine how many toxic kids we would have without the regulation of the alcohol industry.
The result ? No bank bailout in Canada. None of them ever stopped making profits. Sure, their profits dipped, they suffered a bit. But no help was needed for the banks.
The Conservatives spent a ton of money on economic stimulus. The only bailout was that of General Motors... The Conservatives,, even in the midst of the economic meltdown, were telling everyone that everything was fine, the economy was solid (sounded a lot like John McCain...), only to get the government from budget surplus to a record deficit in a matter of three months... The banks sweated but did not suffer, but when a large part of your economy is tied to the crumbling US economy, bad things happen...
Lack of time for the Conservatives to deregulate the banking system saved our banks. As their counterparts in the US, they think no government is good government, and the market is the nirvana. But with the corporate greed we see, that's the last think we need...
Then, capped off with a bailout extorted by and for the very club of people who cutted off the economy at the knees.
We confused - our admirable/rightful promotion of the market - with our shameful/wrongful negligence of protections - from allowing the market to become a casino house for the financial industry (including mortgage, credit card and healthcare insurance) - leading to a house of cards for the overall economy.
Forget about the outrage. Where are our sustainable incentive policies, checks and balances, overseers, control valves, and enforcers?
were operating under the damp jungle
of Ayn Rand’s dark opaque skirt -
where decent sunlight don’t shine.
Greenspan, and his ilk, couldn’t help but not see
through the filter of Ayn Rand’s folly! Clearly
though, his lens was the thickest -
his words were the trickiest.
And, as Ayn Rand, herself,
foretold, unfortunately:
“The hardest thing to explain
is the glaringly evident
which everybody
had decided not to see.â€
Thank God for lifting the cloud of darkness
with financial open sky reform, legislation,
directing sunlight for some good ole,
natural, deep-seated, ‘dis-infection.’
===
That's almost enought to get me playing for the other team.
it takes more to shock people out of sleep these days. i'm surprised you didn't yawn passed it.
it takes more to shock people out of sleep these days. you may be one of the exceptions who didn't yawn passed it.