What's up? No Goldman Sach's bashing going on in here?

rssesq

Why does Wall Street get a free pass and there are 4 threads about AZ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONDZr840 ... 1&index=23

FiveB247x

Because many things that people agree upon without polarizing debate and details aren't discussed as much. People enjoy arguing and screaming about bs' compared to analyzing and talking about historical or even factual information which is a practical way of learning and growing from experience. There's been lots of talk about the bailouts, but lots less bout the behavior which led us to why they were even needed to begin with. It's a chronic issue in our society now... it's more important to point blame and chastise than to learn from the wrong-doing.

rssesq wrote:

Why does Wall Street get a free pass and there are 4 threads about AZ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONDZr840 ... 1&index=23

EvoLukin

Nope. It's up 3% today.

gimmesometruth27

those goldman execs should hang for the fraud they allowed to happen. i think most of us can agree that if these guys are guilty they should go to prison. but they won't because they have high powered lawyers to get them out of anything bad.

norm

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-a ... illionaire

norm

and let's not forget the horny accountants

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-a ... -cumission

FiveB247x

In all honesty, people like this are mere scapegoats and the tip of the iceberg of what occurred. I'd prefer a legit witch-hunt with wide-sailing goals in order to remedy the problems from occurring again compared to lynching a few bad guys.

gimmesometruth27 wrote:

those goldman execs should hang for the fraud they allowed to happen. i think most of us can agree that if these guys are guilty they should go to prison. but they won't because they have high powered lawyers to get them out of anything bad.

dasvidana

rssesq wrote:

Why does Wall Street get a free pass and there are 4 threads about AZ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONDZr840 ... 1&index=23

I bashed them a little, but I did it in an Arizona thread.

aerial

gimmesometruth27 wrote:

those goldman execs should hang for the fraud they allowed to happen. i think most of us can agree that if these guys are guilty they should go to prison. but they won't because they have high powered lawyers to get them out of anything bad.

They also have friends in Washington....I just laugh when I watched congress pretend they were ripping them a new asshole....

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Is-Goldman-Obamas-Enron-No-its-worse-91613449.html
It would be fair to say that the total amount the Obama administration has received from those affiliated with Goldman Sachs is ten times that of what Bush received from Enron.

Goldman is being sued for civil fraud by the Securities and Exchange Commission for deliberately putting unwitting clients on the wrong side of a mortgage security trade that had been designed to fail.

UPDATE: It's not even just campaign contributions. There's quite the revolving door. According to our own Tim Carney:

Greg Craig, Obama's first White House counsel, has joined Goldman, we learned this week. He may not have too much pull in the West Wing, which drove him out for hewing too close to Obama's campaign promises, but as a former insider he will provide valuable intelligence to the world's largest investment bank.

Rahm Emanuel, White House chief of staff, was paid $35,000 as a consultant to Goldman while also working as Bill Clinton's top fundraiser. Obama's fundraiser and economic adviser Warren Buffett is very long on Goldman, having bet on them in 2008 in the expectation of a bailout. Mark Patterson, chief of staff to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, was a Goldman Sachs lobbyist until months before joining Team Obama.

What does that add up to? Getting a hand in making the regulations:

Politico quoted a Goldman lobbyist Monday saying, "We're not against regulation. We're for regulation. We partner with regulators." At least three times in Goldman's conference call Tuesday, spokesmen trumpeted the firm's support for more federal control.
... Goldman's annual report explicitly endorsed stricter federal capital and liquidity requirements. Goldman reported on the conference call that it holds 15 percent "Tier 1 capital," meaning it is very liquid and not very risky. Goldman can play it safe, you see, without needing a regulation. But regulations prevent smaller competitors from taking the risks needed to compete with Goldman (and every competitor is smaller).


























Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opini ... z0mQfoDzOZ

FiveB247x

Perhaps it's semantics, but the Enron debacle is 100 times worse...and in fact Enron not only crooked people in our nation, but many others out of far worse...which to this day is still screwed up. It was an international corruption on the scale of nothing like it before. The current crimes were a market, system, political and personal corruption and failure which led to wide-spread repercussions which included local, national and international economic issues, including the bailouts (transfer of wealth from public to private). But with all that stated, it's the difference between direct crime compared to indirect.

aerial wrote:

gimmesometruth27 wrote:

those goldman execs should hang for the fraud they allowed to happen. i think most of us can agree that if these guys are guilty they should go to prison. but they won't because they have high powered lawyers to get them out of anything bad.

They also have friends in Washington....I just laugh when I watched congress pretend they were ripping them a new asshole....

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Is-Goldman-Obamas-Enron-No-its-worse-91613449.html
It would be fair to say that the total amount the Obama administration has received from those affiliated with Goldman Sachs is ten times that of what Bush received from Enron.

Goldman is being sued for civil fraud by the Securities and Exchange Commission for deliberately putting unwitting clients on the wrong side of a mortgage security trade that had been designed to fail.

UPDATE: It's not even just campaign contributions. There's quite the revolving door. According to our own Tim Carney:

Greg Craig, Obama's first White House counsel, has joined Goldman, we learned this week. He may not have too much pull in the West Wing, which drove him out for hewing too close to Obama's campaign promises, but as a former insider he will provide valuable intelligence to the world's largest investment bank.

Rahm Emanuel, White House chief of staff, was paid $35,000 as a consultant to Goldman while also working as Bill Clinton's top fundraiser. Obama's fundraiser and economic adviser Warren Buffett is very long on Goldman, having bet on them in 2008 in the expectation of a bailout. Mark Patterson, chief of staff to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, was a Goldman Sachs lobbyist until months before joining Team Obama.

What does that add up to? Getting a hand in making the regulations:

Politico quoted a Goldman lobbyist Monday saying, "We're not against regulation. We're for regulation. We partner with regulators." At least three times in Goldman's conference call Tuesday, spokesmen trumpeted the firm's support for more federal control.
... Goldman's annual report explicitly endorsed stricter federal capital and liquidity requirements. Goldman reported on the conference call that it holds 15 percent "Tier 1 capital," meaning it is very liquid and not very risky. Goldman can play it safe, you see, without needing a regulation. But regulations prevent smaller competitors from taking the risks needed to compete with Goldman (and every competitor is smaller).

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opini ... z0mQfoDzOZ

puremagic

Until the Republicans stop filibustering the vote to allow a public debate on Finance Reform, what's the point in bashing them when nothing is going to changed.

Hell, look at Wells Fargo they are making a killing raising prices on foreclosed property and reselling them as is.

DriftingByTheStorm

Goldman is just one of a few of the ultra-elite banking firms that are so obviously in "their" control, that it isn't even worth bothering to "blame" them.

The policies which wrecked this nation's economy were implemented deliberately from the top down, USING firms like Goldman as their vehicles. To "blame" Goldman would be to miss the overarching takeaway point, which is that those who are really in control PLANNED for this to happen, in order to use it to further their aims of GLOBALIZING THE WORLD BANKING STRUCTURE.

Work backwards from the RESULTS of the crisis, to see what the MOTIVE for the crisis was, THEN start laying blame.

EvoLukin

Hell, look at Wells Fargo they are making a killing raising prices on foreclosed property and reselling them as is

I don't understand this comment. Is Wells Fargo supposed to put a bunch of money in a property they are already upside down on because its value is 25% to 35% lower than when they originally loaned out the money? I promise you they are not making a "killing" on foreclosures.

Pepe Silvia

viewtopic.php?f=13&t=129328&p=2918205

WaveCameCrashin

Yeah,I think this trial is nothing more than a show trial.Especially when you factor in the timing and all the campaign contributions that Obama and other politicians got from them. As far as this being worse than Enron, I'm not sure if I agree bcos there were people that lost everything including a few that commuted suicide.

FiveB247x

Do yourself a favor and google Enron and India sometime. It's a clear case of direct corruption, not merely price gauging like Americans experienced in the Enron scandal and certainly not people turning a blind eye and tossing their retirement funds into questionable investments combined with poor rating conditions by "watch-dogs" being asleep at the wheel.

prfctlefts wrote:

Yeah,I think this trial is nothing more than a show trial.Especially when you factor in the timing and all the campaign contributions that Obama and other politicians got from them. As far as this being worse than Enron, I'm not sure if I agree bcos there were people that lost everything including a few that commuted suicide.

flywallyfly

prfctlefts wrote:

Yeah,I think this trial is nothing more than a show trial.Especially when you factor in the timing and all the campaign contributions that Obama and other politicians got from them. As far as this being worse than Enron, I'm not sure if I agree bcos there were people that lost everything including a few that commuted suicide.

This goes further back than Obama....(from 2006 article)

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0820-06.htm

Has Goldman Sachs Taken Over the Bush Administration?


When US President George W. Bush stepped forward to announce his new treasury secretary on May 30, a few Goldman Sachs friends likely knew Henry Paulson had the job.


Paulson was not the first Goldman executive to join the Bush administration from the 137-year-old investment bank described by the president as one of America's "most respected firms".

In fact, he was following in the well-heeled footsteps of three other former Goldman alumni who answered Bush's call, although Stephen Friedman who briefly headed the White House National Economic Council, has since returned to "the firm" as it is known on Wall Street.

Aside from running a billion-dollar bank, it is also likely that Paulson's political donations of tens of thousands of dollars to Republican senators added to his luster.

The "revolving door" between the corporate world and government is nothing new, but Goldman leads the way by far in terms of its managers infiltrating the White House and other top government posts.

"It appears to be, for whatever reason, that Goldman Sachs sometimes has a disproportionate share of former employees in and out of government at any one time," said former White House spokesman Trent Duffy, who observed personnel decisions.

"Some companies are more welcoming of government officials and maybe that's how Goldman has been a little more successful in putting its people in there," Duffy said.

Others said Goldman's blue-chip reputation also helps.

"There is a bias in favor of people who have risen to the top at places like Goldman because it is seen as giving that person more to offer in that type of post, like the treasury," said Beth Young, an analyst at The Corporate Library, an independent corporate governance consultancy.

Young said Goldman benefits when executives return to the firm, as they would be expected to bring back a BlackBerry bursting with influential contacts.

Goldman does not publicly trumpet the appointments, but it does celebrate top managers who have served in the government.

One of the oil paintings hanging in the executive suite at Goldman's New York headquarters portrays Robert Rubin, a former vice chairman who became then-president Bill Clinton's treasury secretary.

But Bush has hired far more heavily from the bank that was founded in a New York basement by German immigrant Marcus Goldman in 1869.

The president's chief of staff, Josh Bolten, and the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Jeffery Reuben, are Goldman alumni.

But the flow goes both ways. Goldman recently hired Robert Zoellick, who stepped down as the US deputy secretary of state, and Faryar Shirzad, who worked as one of Bush's national security advisors.

"They must do a great job of maintaining their presence in Washington," said Jerry Swerling, a public relations profesor at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication, who has advised General Motors and Cisco Systems.

"When you look at the appointments that these Goldman people have been getting it certainly says 'yes' to all those criteria" that Goldman's clients would desire in terms of inside knowledge and government access," Swerling said.

A securities law expert, who asked to remain anonymous, said: "They're very attentive at Goldman to what school you went to," noting that "the firm" recruits from "Ivy League" universities like Harvard and Yale.

This creates a "network" of individuals who have friends in high government office, the expert said.

A Goldman Sachs spokesman said the firm is proud of executives who enter public service and that it welcomes former government officials.

"We are doing business at the intersection of so many markets around the world, that people with a global perspective are immensely useful," the spokesman said.

A space on the executive suite wall is reserved for Paulson's portrait, but a sitting has yet to be scheduled.

FiveB247x

Yes - none of these issues are solely created or enabled by one of the parties - both have had their hands on this mess for quite some time, but Obama was simply the one who was in office when the shit hit the fan and was left to deal and address it. Merely scapegoating is more important than reflection and change to policy so it doesn't occur again.

flywallyfly wrote:

This goes further back than Obama....(from 2006 article)

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0820-06.htm

Has Goldman Sachs Taken Over the Bush Administration?

Pepe Silvia

flywallyfly wrote:

This goes further back than Obama....(from 2006 article)

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0820-06.htm

Has Goldman Sachs Taken Over the Bush Administration?

pffffffffffffffft everyone knows the world began january 2009 :roll:

rssesq

I want a kosher bailout too.

Cosmo

rssesq wrote:

Why does Wall Street get a free pass and there are 4 threads about AZ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONDZr840 ... 1&index=23

...
Well... think about it...
Do you actually believe that anyone here... Conservative or Liberal... is going to argue points in FAVOR of Goldman Sachs? It's pretty much a one sided issue... eveyone thinks they are a bunch of Wall Street douchebags.
Whereas the Arizona Immigration Law has two opposite views.
Kinda makes sense, right?