My father was a professional gambler and used to carry a roll of money that he called "walking around" money.
Walking around money is what the SEC settled for in the Goldman Sachs case.
$550 million is walking around money to a company like Goldman Sachs. It is less than 5% of the $10 billion in bonuses it paid itself last year.
Maybe "walking around" money is an understatement.
The stock market understood that Goldman got the best of the deal. Goldman's stock price surged 4.43% on rumors of a settlement. As the Huffington Post pointed out, the stock gain was probably enough to cover the $550 million fine.
Also, Goldman got a monkey off its back. It can go on without a lawsuit hanging over its head. If the SEC had taken the time to do a through and complete investigations, who knows what they would have found.
In its never ending ability to accommodate Wall Street, the SEC announced the settlement on the day when the rest of the world was focused on passage of the financial reform bill. Thus, whatever "embarrassment" Goldman might have suffered was mitigated by the settlement not being a top news story.
One of the first tricks they teach you in corporate public relations is to release bad news on a day when it will get buried.
Goldman is rich enough to hire the best public relations people.
And it looks like the best lawyers. There has to be some major high fives going on in the boardroom after getting such a sweet heart deal.
I am not sure what the SEC hoped to accomplish with a quick and inadequate settlement. It didn't make those of us on Main Street feel any better about our "watchdog."
It just gave more evidence that the SEC is safely in the arms of Wall Street.
Don McNay, CLU, ChFC, MSFS, CSSC is an award-winning financial columnist and Huffington Post Contributor.
You can read more about Don at www.donmcnay.com
McNay has Master's Degrees from Vanderbilt and the American College and is in the Hall of Distinguished Alumni of Eastern Kentucky University.
McNay has written two books. Most recent is Son of a Son of a Gambler: Winners, Losers and What to Do When You Win The Lottery
McNay is a lifetime member of the Million Dollar Round Table and has four professional designations in the financial services field.
Follow Don McNay on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Donmcnay
Whatever.
I mean, if you know anybody else would be doing time for the offense, you must know the details, what exactly Goldman was charged with, to make that statement.
Let's hear it: what did Goldman do, and how much profit did they make from it?
Here are the details from a former regulator who investigated the S&L scandal in the 80's:
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04032009/watch.html
Wall Street/Bankers have rigged the house and they will always be the winners. If Goldman had been fined a billion dollars the IRS would probably have given them a billion dollar tax break.
None of this is new, it has been happening even before there was an America.
Even by 1776, global capitalism was limited. The British East India Tea company was "in" with the British, but there weren't a lot of others, and Britain was the largest, richest nation.
The term "capitalism" didn't even exist until the late 1800s, when Karl Marx coined it.
Until the railroads were built, there practically wasn't a banking system or corps here.
Large-scale crony capitalism is only about 150 years old, basically since the Civil War.
It is only a matter of time until someone who feels he or she has nothing to lose takes out an executive at one of these big firms, or a member of their board. If I were Blankfein, I'd be paying Blackwater millions to protect me and my family.
On the up side, where else can you get paid to look at porn all day?
...a severe lick is appropriate, no?
Romney/Paulson 2012
If so,,,
,,,It's time to divest the stock holdings of everyone who has or could have any influence over stock prices. From Congress to the SEC to the President none should have ANY stocks. Talk about conflict of interest!
Sorry, it's just so damn coincidental that the SEC has no balls.
Now Obama and the Democratic political handlers can go calling effectively in search of campaign contributions. With this settlement in the bag even the Chamber of Commerce and Business Roundtable might be advising siphoning contributions to Democrats. And, as Obama noted recently in response to the surprising, scare tactic intended announcement of huge increases in business donations to the GOP coffers...the game is on.
The Supreme Court gave Big Money a gigantic pass to further corrupt the American political process and, primarily being political hacks, Obama and his gang are now in search of a huge share of the pie.
It's a new game in Washington, DC...with the For Sale sign in the entrance hall at the White House. "Change You Can Believe In" is now an historic relic though given five seconds consideration before moving on to business as usual. History shall write an unfavourable legacy for this administration leaving many perplexed.
A meaningless fine with the firm neither admitting or denying any wrong doing.
The truly funny part of all this is that GS will pay the fine with Taxpayer provided money.