Justice Department Investigation Into Goldman Sachs Goes Beyond SEC Cases
But since it's all a giant shell game anyway, and it's likely that the other Wall Street firms are using the exact same practices, why are the stock prices dropping? It's almost as if investors need to believe this was an aberration, and they're clutching the idea like a security blanket. Bad Goldman Sachs!
And here's the real problem: Without factual information and accurate risk assessment, capitalism is a game completely rigged in favor of the insiders. If enough people wake up and stop investing, well, that's a whole other catastrophe:
The Justice Department's criminal investigation into Goldman Sachs goes beyond the financial transactions targeted by the Securities and Exchange Commission in the civil fraud suit brought against the firm last month, law enforcement sources said Friday.
The Justice Department probe began weeks ago and is essentially on a parallel track with the SEC investigation, the sources said. While prosecutors and investigators are focusing on some of the same mortgage-related transactions as the SEC, the sources said, the Justice Department has cast a wider net.
Investors pounded Goldman Sachs shares on Friday as it became increasingly clear that the Wall Street bank's problems are continuing to grow. After initial news media reports about the criminal investigation, investors sent Goldman shares down 9.4 percent, or $15.04, to $145.20.
It was another brutal day for a firm that survived the worst of the financial wreckage of the past two years. Since the SEC filed its suit April 16, Goldman's shares have lost 20 percent of their value, costing investors $20.6 billion in market value.
So are we essentially looking at Frmr Sec of Tres. Paulson, the former CEO of Goldman, throwing billions of dollars at his former employer while knowing he was advancing money to an institution engaging in a criminal enterprise.
Or did all of this start after Paulson's departure from the firm, and he was completely unaware how the firm did business?
They said no to bailing out Enron. Why couldn't they have said no to this? It is the same type of criminal activity.
The Justice Department is going to pull back the veil on the US ponzi economy?
That will be the day. The day before the collapse.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
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Your point is well taken.
We are past the limits of growth, The corrosive regime of mass production (which the US does less of now) and mass consumption (which the US has done way too much of) will come to an end.
The ending will not be pretty.
statusquObama, change you can only pretend in
"Since the SEC filed its suit April 16, Goldman's shares have lost 20 percent of their value, costing investors $20.6 billion in market value."
In reality though, the only thing that losing 20% of value in the company means is that the exec's will have to give themelves a 40% bonus to make up the difference.
They produce nothing.
They create shadow profits by moving electrons.
They pay themselve whether the company makes money or not.
I say tax these people at 90%. The alternative is to force these greedy bastards to accept their bonuses in front of the unemployment line, and let matters take care of themselves. I think they'll be glad to contribute at the 90% rate after a few of their compatriots are beaten into component atomic particles in front of their eyes.
We may not be able to trace every penny from start to finish in this swindle, but we do know which direction the money went - up into the stratosphere. This has been class warfare, and only one side has been fighting.
Time for the other 98% of us to fight back.
Corruption favors the wealthy.
then you'll see the bankers protesting with the teabaggers :-)
NOBODY 2012
They destroy wealth. Goldman Sachs and firms like it are designed to rip off the rich. Boom and bust. The Boom is to bring the suckers in and the Bust is to rip them off. The rich were much better off when the government was taking their money. At least the government left them something to play with. Goldman Sachs takes it all.
were yourn pension plaqns and the 401Ks you used to have.
And that nice little country called Greece that we liked to imagine that we would visit someday.
Exactomundo. When they pay 5 BILLION in employee bonuses (for one quarter!) and they do not have all that many employees you know that you are looking at a business based on fraud, pure and simple. There is no way to create that much added value on anything.
Think about it. Five billion is about $1 for every person IN the world -- or to be parochial about $16 for every citizen in the United States. Is what one financial company does even remotely worth having every citizen pay $16 a quarter? And that is just Goldman!
part-time job?
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Yeah that is about it. I don't think this will lead to huge changes -- victims of cons are almost always hit many times. I suppose you could look at the .com bust (Oh yeah, pets.com is the next Microsoft!!!!) as the first con, at least the first con since I started paying attention. The second con was "buy stocks in companies that actually exist and you will be safe" and the third con was "god doesn't make any more real estate." Probably the next con is going to be commodities and by then enough people will have forgotten about the .com bust that it can start all over.
Goldman doesn't really care, with deriviatives you can base the con on anything.
The biggest long term problem for the United States is that Goldman et. al. were ripping off governments. The U.S. has always been considered a safe place to put soverign wealth and that is going to change. If you put your money in the Banco de la Revolucion you sort of expect to get ripped off, but it is now becoming clear that going with a big wall street name means that it is guarenteed.
what do you wanna bet that key players within Goldman Sachs are holding short positions against their own company?
and raise you a thousand ;)
Bill Moyers [sadly] his last show had a comment about Plutonomy appended to one of his segments. I just posted it at http://www.foxnews-follies.com for those who don't know how to get to his website. This is an extract - only 4 minutes
If you need funds to pay for essentials, you have a revenue problem
If you need funds to pay for frivolity, you have a spending problem
20.6 billion share value loss is a drop in the bucket, compared to the actual cash lost by the people who invested in g s's various and sundry fraudulent funds. you only lose on stock if you actually sell it, the funds burned through real cash money like a drunken sailor on shore leave goes through cheap hootch.
i await the report on the accounting firms charged with auditing their books and records (ala enron), which should have disclosed all the "funny money" games they were playing with investor funds, but apparently didn't. that assumes actual "independence", on the the part of the accounting firms, something that doesn't exist in real life, only in my "ethics for CPA's" book.
Goldman Sacks is not the only player at the game. How many more of these cases are out there? What does that mean for the investor? There is going to be a ripple effect that turns into a tsunami. We all invest now. It's our retirement. And the investment industry has grown greatly in the last twenty years. How many jobs lost over the breakdown of an over inflated industry? How many lives turned upside down as the economy does a downhill spiral? What a mess.
Jeanne
I took my money out of my 401k in 2004, My wife took hers out in 2008. The stock market is a suckers game. Like all things in this so called free market. Everything has been stacked against the small business person. Every obstacle that can be imagined has been put in your way. You will never get to be one of the supre rich at least not honestly. The only way you can strike it rich involves cheating someone else. Stocks ponzi scheme!
If all were prosecuted , convicted and locked up like they should be , Wall Street would be a thing of the past .
Insanity , it is what it is , there is no understanding it .
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