Goldman Sachs report 'blowout profits'

[Park Life 71]

Why is the key protecting investors?

[Meenzer 14136]

Why is the key protecting investors?

 

Because precisely fuck-all works without them?

[Park Life 71]

Why is the key protecting investors?

 

Because precisely fuck-all works without them?

 

 

Rubbish. If you start protecting investors Capitalism is fucked. It only works cause the average investors (the one's you think need protecting) are kept clueless.

[Happy Face 29]

The US Senator investigating the causes of the financial meltdown has launched a stinging attack on Goldman Sachs.

 

Carl Levin spoke of the recklessness and greed that seemed to have infected Wall Street's financial community.

 

In his opening address to the hearing in Washington, Mr Levin said Goldman executives had caused widespread harm to their fellow citizens.

 

Several Goldman executives are giving evidence at the hearing, and all have denied they acted improperly.

 

Tuesday's hearing is the fourth in a series that is focusing on what lay behind the financial crisis and the collapse of the housing market.

 

This latest hearing focuses on the role of investment banks, and specifically that played by Goldman.

 

The hearing comes after Goldman, and a London-based executive, Fabrice Tourre, were charged with civil fraud by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

 

They are alleged to have misled clients about a conflict of interest and thereby profited from the sub-prime housing collapse.

 

Mr Tourre, who is giving evidence at the hearing, and his company have vigorously denied wrong-doing.

 

Mr Levin, chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, said his job was not to resolve the SEC's allegations.

 

The committee's job, he said, was to look at ethics and policy.

 

He said: "Goldman proclaims a responsibility to our clients... Yet the evidence shows that Goldman repeatedly put its own interests and profits ahead of the interests of its clients and our communities."

 

Complex investments, offered not just by Goldman but many banks, "did incalculable harm to people who have never heard of mortgage-backed securities," he said.

 

'False claim'

 

In a statement released ahead of the hearing, Mr Tourre, denied wrong-doing and said he would clear his name in court.

 

Mr Tourre, the only individual to be charged, said in his statement: "I deny - categorically - the SEC's allegations. And I will defend myself in court against this false claim."

 

The under-fire banker will argue that Goldman was simply "managing [its] risk" in betting on market falls.

 

He will also say that the bank lost $1.2bn (£779m) as a result of the collapse in house prices in 2008.

 

On Monday, the committee accused Goldman of profiting at its clients' expense.

 

According to Mr Levin, investigations show that Goldman bet on property prices falling, while selling clients investments that depended on a rising market in order to be profitable.

 

"Goldman Sachs made billions of dollars from betting against the housing market, and it placed those bets in some cases at the same time it was selling mortgage related securities to its clients," he said.

 

"They have a lot to answer for."

 

Charge disputed

 

In a text of his prepared testimony, Mr Blankfein said the bank "strongly disagreed" with the SEC's complaint, calling the episode "one of the worst days in my professional life".

 

"We have been a client-centred firm for 140 years and if our clients believe that we don't deserve their trust, we cannot survive."

 

He added that the accusation that the bank made money from bets on market falls ("short" positions) was simply not true.

 

"We didn't have a massive short against the housing market and we certainly did not bet against our clients," he said.

 

"Rather, we believe that we managed our risk as our shareholders and our regulators would expect."

 

Other Goldman executives due to appear at the hearing include the chief financial officer David Viniar. Senators will also question the London-based trader Fabrice Tourre, who faces SEC fraud charges along with Goldman.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8645945.stm

[Happy Face 29]

So today is the big day. Lloyd “God’s Work” Blankfein and Fabrice “Fabulous Fab” Tourre are going to be dragged before the Senate and formally introduced to America via the medium of a hearing of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.

 

It’s hard to get a read on just exactly what this is all about. I hear conflicting things. On the one hand, one always has to keep in mind that Congress has a history of dragging current news-cycle villains into their arena to get video-whipped for purely political reasons — think the Mark-McGwire-weeping steroid hearings. And certainly the impending vote on the Financial Regulatory Reform bill is an important and very obviously related subplot to the Goldman investigation. So politically there are all sorts of reasons for the Senate to do this now.

 

The Democrats have a lot to gain by hauling in God’s Work and the Fab to be tarred and feathered. Politically, the most important thing from their point of view is to corner the Republicans politically, showing the country that these evil assholes testifying are the same people who have been sending armies of lobbyists to Washington to kill the Regulatory Reform bill, the same bill that the Republicans are trying to block debate on.

 

The Republicans, meanwhile, are in the difficult position of trying to sell Wall Street’s position on the Regulatory Reform bill to their base. That might not sound so very difficult, given that the Tea Partiers in particular continue to oppose further government regulation and have used the idea that Barack Obama’s government is “taking over the banking sector” as a rallying cry. But Wall Street isn’t exactly popular with the Tea Party, either, so selling their side of the debate on this bill is a bit of a sticky thing.

 

Leave it to Sarah Palin to come up with the solution. This is from a post on her Facebook page. I advise everyone to read it, since it’s a highly amusing piece of propaganda:

 

The current debate over financial reform demonstrates what happens when political leaders react to a crisis with a raft of new regulations. First off, the people involved in writing government regulations are often lobbyists from the very industry that the new laws are supposed to regulate, and that’s been the case here. It should surprise no one that financial lobbyists are flocking to DC this week. Of course, the big players who can afford lobbyists work the regulations in their favor, while their smaller competitors are left out in the cold. The result here are regulations that institutionalize the “too big to fail” mentality.

 

Moreover, the financial reform bill gives regulators the power to pick winners and losers, institutionalizing their ability to decide “which firms to rescue or close, and which creditors to reward and how.” Does anyone doubt that firms with the most lobbyists and the biggest campaign donations will be the ones who get seats in the lifeboat? The president is trying to convince us that he’s taking on the Wall Street “fat cats,” but firms like Goldman Sachs are happy with federal regulation because, as one of their lobbyists recently stated, “We partner with regulators.”

 

Sometimes it’s hard not to admire Sarah Palin. You need to have a pair of iron church bells swinging between your knees to pull off a crazy line like this, and she does it almost effortlessly. If you’re scoring at home, the idea here is that banks like Goldman actually want this regulatory bill because it will allow them to “partner with regulators,” i.e. team up with the government, to dominate the economy. This is despite the fact that Washington is currently flooded with financial services industry lobbyists who, in an attempt to kill this bill, are practically lugging suitcases full of money around to throw at the likes of Ben Nelson and Mitch McConnell.

 

The awesome thing about this is that it’s almost guaranteed to work with the people Palin is targeting. The Democrats here are going to suffer, deservedly so, for having taken so much money in the past from Goldman and banks like Goldman. That fact now allows transparent bullshitters like Palin — who incidentally supported the bank bailouts — to credibly argue that this Regulatory Reform bill is an industry creation. It doesn’t hurt that the Democrats’ last major piece of legislation, the Health Care bill, actually was a monstrous giveaway to industry that allowed campaign contributors to appropriate the power of the state to extract profits from ordinary people.

 

This Regulatory Reform bill is not that, but if you’re a Tea Partier, what about the past history of the Democrats would lead you to believe otherwise? Thus Carl Levin can get up there and roar all he wants at Lloyd Blankfein today, but the way this is going to play to a good 30% of the electorate is that the Democrats and big Lloyd are putting on a dog-and-pony show in order to smooth the way for the next chapter in their world domination plan. Hell, even writing that right now, I’m starting to believe it myself.

 

The reality, of course, is that this is a make-or-break moment for Goldman, Sachs. It just may be that the Democrats, after years of intimate partnership with this firm, have finally decided to “go in a different direction” and cut Goldman loose, purely for political reasons. A close friend of mine from Russia points out that there are parallels here to Putin’s ascension to power, when a rookie president pushed into his seat by a gang of oligarchs decided upon election to whack the most obviously odious of the bunch — Bank Menatep’s Mikhail Khodorkovsky — in order to firm up his “reform” credentials and, politically speaking, put himself on the other side the obscene corruption of the Yeltsin era.

 

Maybe I’m seeing more than is actually there with this Senate business. But with all this noise now about new cases even above and beyond Abacus, it is sure beginning to sound like someone has decided to make an example out of Goldman Sachs.

 

p.s. Palin, of course, isn’t completely wrong about the concept of “institutionalizing the too-big-to-fail” mentality. As originally conceived by Tim Geithner, the bill would have done exactly that, bailing out top-25 banks with taxpayer money and then only later (and without a specific timetable) getting Wall Street to foot the bill for bailouts. But the newer version makes Wall Street pay up front into a bailout fund. Of course the bill in its entirety is nothing to write home about (see Nomi Prins’s take on the subject), but what little good stuff is in the bill is only there in spite of Wall Street’s lobbying. In other words, the Goldmans of the world would have preferred no bill at all and are still trying to water it down as much as possible. Palin meanwhile is selling it as something Goldman actually wants, a new Obama-Goldman gouge job, in order to increase its market advantage over smaller competitors. It’s clever, you have to admit.

 

http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2010/04/27/palin-on-goldman/

[Park Life 71]

The assets of that whole ugly thing should be confiscated and it should be dissolved with all the key players jailed for life.

[NJS 4006]

I like the way betting on the failure of peoples assets when it's your own clients is fraud but when it's other peoples clients it's good business - either way people losing homes = profit.

[Happy Face 29]

To be fair, we all take out insurance. By that token, wifes death = profit.

 

Of course, Goldman were taking life insurance out on the wife knowing full well she had a tumor the size of a beachball on her abdoman....and stopping her visiting the doctor.

[Park Life 71]

Think I said somewhere in here portugal would be next...

 

By Sarah Turner

 

LONDON (Dow Jones)--European shares tumbled on Tuesday, with Greek stocks plunging as the specter of debt restructuring continues to hang over the Hellenic Republic with Standard & Poor's cutting their ratings on both Portugal and Greece.

 

After Monday's rise of 1%, the Stoxx Europe 600 index tumbled 3.1% to 261.65 as Standard & Poor's cut Greece's debt rating to junk territory, and also cut Portugal's debt rating two notches.

 

S&P threatened to cut both ratings further.

 

"The downgrade of both Greek a....

 

Goldman Sachs had something to do with Greece as well, but I can't find it.

[Matt 0]

The Eurozone can't hack two bailouts. Return of the Deutschmark anyone?

[Park Life 71]

The Eurozone can't hack two bailouts. Return of the Deutschmark anyone?

 

Beer will be cheaper.

[ChezGiven 0]

To be fair, we all take out insurance. By that token, wifes death = profit.

 

Of course, Goldman were taking life insurance out on the wife knowing full well she had a tumor the size of a beachball on her abdoman....and stopping her visiting the doctor.

 

Its more like taking bets on how long your wife will live knowing she has cancer, promising big pay-outs if she makes past 5 years, whilst taking life insurance out on her with an insurance party who dont know she has cancer.

[Park Life 71]

BorowitzReport.com

Posted: April 30, 2010 01:25 PM

 

 

NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report) - In what is looming as another public relations predicament for Goldman Sachs, the banking giant admitted today that it made "a substantial financial bet against the Gulf of Mexico" one day before the sinking of an oil rig in that body of water.

 

The new revelations came to light after government investigators turned up new emails from Goldman employee Fabrice "Fabulous Fab" Tourre in which he bragged to a girlfriend that the firm was taking a "big short" position on the Gulf.

 

"One oil rig goes down and we're going to be rolling in dough," Mr. Tourre wrote in one email. "Suck it, fishies and birdies!"

 

The news about Goldman's bet against the Gulf comes on the heels of embarrassing revelations that the firm had taken a short position on Lindsay Lohan's acting career. More here.

 

 

Is there any tragedy or nightmare or scam this lot aren't involved in?

[ChezGiven 0]

Think they may have backed us to go down last season too.

[Park Life 71]

Think they may have backed us to go down last season too.

 

[Park Life 71]

Bernanke Admits Printing $1.3 Trillion Out Of Thin Air

Briefcase

 

Greg Hunter

USAWatchdog

Wed, 21 Apr 2010 12:23 EDT

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke admitted the central bank created $1.3 trillion out of thin air to buy mortgage backed securities. This shocking admission came from the Joint Economic Committee hearing on Capital Hill last week. I was dumbfounded when I saw Bernanke shake his head in the affirmative as Representative Ron Paul said, "Well, where did you get the money? You created this money. So you did monetize debt, and that went into the banking system." I was amazed he admitted this. I looked up the original hearing on C-Span to make sure the clip was not edited. It was not.

 

What is even more shocking is I could not find a single mainstream news agency that covered this revelation. Congress just finished voting on the bitterly contested Obama health care bill that is supposed to cost nearly a trillion dollars over ten years. (Some contend it will be more than twice that amount.) The mainstream media doesn't even bat an eye over the Fed creating $1.3 trillion in a little more than a year to buy worthless debt no one else will touch. I do not get it. I guess we could have asked the Fed to print up a trillion dollars to pay for health care and avoided that drawn out battle in Congress.

[Park Life 71]

How Goldman Sachs Screwed Ghana

Print

Black Cat

 

 

GhanaWeb

Wed, 21 Apr 2010 02:00 EDT

Goldman Sachs

© Unknown

Goldman Sachs, the global financial institution, with fraud allegations levied against it has a long history of setting up its clients for a fall...and making handsome profits.

 

This is a story of how this global investment banking and securities firm screwed Ghana

 

In 1998, Ashanti Gold was the 3rd largest Gold Mining company in the world. The first "black" company on the London Stock Exchange, Ashanti had just purchased the Geita mine in Tanzania, positioning Ashanti to become even larger. But in May 1999, the Treasury of the United Kingdom decided to sell off 415 tons of its gold reserves. With all that gold flooding the world market, the price of gold began to decline. By August 1999, the price of gold had fallen to $252/ounce, the lowest it had been in 20 years.

 

Ashanti turned to its Financial Advisors - Goldman Sachs - for advice. Goldman Sachs recommended that Ashanti purchase nhat Ashanti enter agreements to sell gold at a 'locked-in' price, and suggested that the price of gold would continue to fall.

 

But Goldman was more than just Ashanti's advisors. They were also sellers of these Hedge contracts, and stood to make money simply by selling them. And they were also world-wide sellers of Gold itself.

 

In September 1999 (one month later), 15 European Banks with whom Goldman had professional relationships made a unanimous surprise announcement that all 15 would stop selling gold on world markets for 5 years. The announcement immediately drove up gold prices to $307/ounce, and by October 6, it had risen to $362/ounce.

 

Ashanti was in trouble. At Goldman's advice, they had bet that gold prices would continue to drop, and had entered into contracts to sell gold at lower prices. These contracts were held by a group of 17 other world banks. Ashanti found themselves being forced to buy gold at high world prices and sell it at the low contract prices to make good on the contracts. The result? In a few weeks time, Ashanti found itself with 570 million dollars worth of losses. It had to beg the 17 banks not to force the execution of the contracts.

 

Who served as the negotiator for the 17 banks and Ashanti? Goldman Sachs. The same company that designed the contracts for Ashanti(making a profit in their sale).

 

The basic bankruptcy of Ashanti drove its stock price from an all time high of $25 per share to a paltry $4.62 per share. Thousands of investors - your blogger among them - lost their investments almost overnight as Ashanti was declared insolvent.

 

In the end (2003), Ashanti was purchased by their largest African competitor, AngloGold, a British company headquartered in South Africa, who bought them for a song. The Financial Advisors to AngloGold? You guessed it: Goldman Sachs.

 

The destruction of Ashanti Gold by Goldman Sachs was saturated with fraud and conflicts of interest: Goldman Sachs served as Ashanti's Financial Advisors; profited form the contracts they designed and marketed for Ashanti; was involved in the manipulation of the gold prices on which the contracts depended; represented Ashanti's creditors when the contracts went bad; and profited as the Financial Advisors to the company that picked up the Ashanti corpse for pennies on the dollar.

Print

[Park Life 71]

 

Gay?

[Rob W 0]

The assets of that whole ugly thing should be confiscated and it should be dissolved with all the key players jailed for life.

 

 

hang a few from lamp posts - much more effetive message

[Cid_MCDP 0]

Can I go on record and say that I'll be absolutely, jaw-on-the-floor shocked if anything remotely resembling a jail sentence is handed out for any banker involved in this mess?

[ChezGiven 0]

They may bang up the frenchman. Would be funny.

[Park Life 71]

They may bang up the frenchman. Would be funny.

 

The way he turns that folder over won't last 5 min in state pen.

[Happy Face 29]

 

Gay?

 

 

From Joel Sucher’s documentary, “A Tale of Two Streets”

[Happy Face 29]

MUST HEAR: Panic And Loathing From The S&P 500 Pits

 

"Guys this is probably the craziest I have seen it down here ever."

 

Here it is, memorialized for the generations and away from the now openly ridiculous disinformation propaganda of the mainstream media, just what a full market meltdown panic sounds like: straight from the epicenter, the S&P 500 pits. Luckily open ouctry still exists, if at least for shock value.

 

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/panic-and...ing-sp-500-pits

 

Right click and "save target as".

 

 

[Park Life 71]

It's coming.