SEC charges GS with fraud

Quote from nitro:

The books on the tragedy that is the financial system are coming out fast and furious to the point where I can't keep up with them anymore. But I think this one is worth adding to the list:

Confidence Game: How a Hedge Fund Manager Called Wall Street's Bluff (Hardcover)
~ Christine S. Richard

http://www.amazon.com/Confidence-Ga...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274981569&sr=8-1

One thing that made me go almost ballistic when I read it is this part from the introduction:

"...How was it that MBIA could write insurance on hundreds of billions of dollars of debt and yet tell its investors that it guaranteed only bonds on which it expected to pay no claims? In an article for Bloomberg Markets magazine called "The Insurance Charade," Darrell Preston and I exposed part of the secret by looking into various public projects that weren't supposed to be obligations of the taxpayer. Yet when the insured bonds issued to finance these projects threatened to default , taxpayers were called on to cover those losses. MBIA had a nearly perfect track record in the municipal bond market because it wasn't the real insurer of debt: Taxpayers were..."

Guess what, the consumer and the public in general are on the hooks in situations that we don't expect to be. Take for example the BP oil spill. People are trying to figure out how to punish BP for their negligence. So they say, ok, we will not buy BP gasoline. Then they realize, wait, that is some small business owner that we are screwing. Scratch that. Wait, I know, we will sell BP stock and punish them. Stock is up 5% today and it will be back up to previous levels soon. Ugh. Wait, we will fine them billions of dollars, we will in addition require them to clean every last drop of oil from the area. We will sue them for the lost revenue to shrimpers. Hmm, maybe we are getting somewhere?

Guess what, BP and the rest of their ilk will will pass those costs on to the people that buy their oil, and we will pay like it or not. Ultimately we are on the hook for just about any asinine mistake that corporations make, especially ones in a oligopoly (I wonder if that should have been spelled oilgopoly) market so crucial to the every day functioning of society.

If I never had to deal with a bank or an oil company again in my life...Give me a fusion reactor. Give me the ability to to pay my bills without a bank of parasites.
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great post, nitro.
 
Quote from Hello:

Nitro i want to start by saying i respect your opinion 100% of the time. I almost never disagree with you, however in this respect i think we might have differring view points. I remember Loyd Blankfein being called up in front of congress, and from a speculators point of view his initial assumption was accurate. He basically said "anytime a market maker or goldman is looking to sell something you should assume they are selling it cause they dont want it." Whether it is for moral reasons is nonmaterial, the bottom line is that goldman is selling it cause they think it is overvalued.

The whole idea of the stock market is that a seller meets with a buyer, both sides of that transaction assume the other side doesnt want it. So both sides assume the other side is the "loser." The fact of the matter is that only one side ends up a "winner," So with any transaction which pertains to the market someone will inevitably end up a loser.
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Hello,

I do not disagree with you in what you are saying. Here is probably where so much of the confusion, and IMHO where a hornets nest of conflicts arise: Goldman Sachs simply has its paws in too many businesses under one roof leading to confusion on the clients part and abuse on the GS employees part. People still think of GS as the GS of the late 90s, where their job was mostly IB and to aid their clients. It has since then become a multitude of things, but we still believe this is the same old GS. Hence there is a disconnect with the name and the perception of what we think this firm stands for.

And there is the rub. "GS" (the people that work in different capacity there) abused GS good name [that was made during the 100 years or so this firm has been in business before it also became the firm it is now after Glass-Steagal], with the clandestine intent to deceive customers that still thought they were dealing with the old GS - the one that had it's clients interest at heart. While this is not a crime because the legalese was probably spelled out very clearly, it is extremely unethical, and the reputation of the entire firm has suffered, rightly or wrongly.

What GS should to do is to spin off the different parts of it's businesses imo, either voluntarily or by force. The name Goldman Sachs should never mean, "I am trading against you my client, you fool". It should stand for, "I will help you bring your ideas to the capital markets", the way it did Ford 100 years ago.

Corporations have gotten waaay too big, and are closer to psychopathic thugs now than friends of service, employment and needs.
 
"UPDATE 2-BofA's Countrywide settles with FTC for $108 mln"

http://www.cnbc.com/id/37556820

And this is just the cream. It is not even close to being the coffee.

Americans want the good life. Nothing wrong with that, but when hard work means, "let's see how hard we can work our citizens out of their money by lying cheating and stealing..."

Total and complete collapse of an ethical society on a mass scale.
 
Quote from nitro:

"Goldman Accused of Thwarting Financial Crisis Panel"

http://www.cnbc.com/id/37553237

"Goldman Sachs Stung by Backlash in China"

http://www.cnbc.com/id/37548164

They must be scratching their heads wondering "You know, I think the US government may not be for sale anymore."

I read the New Yorker magazine religiously for the witty cartoons. Why don't I see any GS cartoons?
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Would you turn over your financial records to the US government without a subpoena?
 
There are so many pieces to Gs unethical behavior it is daunting!
Lets not forget, they had to turn all their finacial records over to the government to begin with back when they became a Bank right? Did the fed just look the other way and not ask for all these security firms records in 2008 when they desperatly needed money and the only way to get fed money was to become a bank? The federal government is holding records and not sharing them which is common but what is wild is that people are still defending GS.
 
Quote from nitro:

"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Wall Street is making a last stand against regulatory reform in behind-the-scenes meetings in Congress, where lobbyists hope to use high-stakes horse trading to blunt provisions that could cost the industry billions of dollars...."

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Wall-...l?x=0&.v=1&sec=topStories&pos=6&asset=&ccode=

Is Washington still for sale? Please, let it be no.
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You are joking, no?

You know, as well as I, they'll never quit. Someone told me once one of "them" were passing out money. Not lobbying, but "passing out money". they know it, I know it, no one cares.
 
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