Goldman Sachs and Dutsche Bank Major Cause in Financial Crisis

[Guest LAW]

THE FINANCIAL CRISIS : Anatomy of a Financial Collapse

 

MAJORITY AND MINORITY STAFF REPORT

 

PERMANENT SUBCOMMITTEE ON INVESTIGATIONS

 

Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank, two leaders in the design, marketing, and sale of mortgage related securities.

 

Two case studies, involving Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank, illustrate a variety of troubling practices that raise conflicts of interest and other concerns involving RMBS, CDO, CDS, and ABX related financial instruments that contributed to the financial crisis.

 

The Goldman Sachs case study focuses on how it used net short positions to benefit from the downturn in the mortgage market, and designed, marketed, and sold CDOs in ways that created conflicts of interest with the firm's clients and at times led to the bank's profiting from

the same products that caused substantial losses for its clients.

 

From 2004 to 2008, Goldman was a major player in the U.S. mortgage market. In 2006

and 2007 alone, it designed and underwrote 93 RMBS and 27 mortgage related CDO

securitizations totaling about $100 billion, bought and sold RMBS and CDO securities on behalf

of its clients, and amassed its own multi-billion-dollar proprietary mortgage related holdings.

 

In December 2006, however, when it saw evidence that the high risk mortgages underlying many

RMBS and CDO securities were incurring accelerated rates of delinquency and default,

Goldman quietly and abruptly reversed course.

 

Over the next two months, it rapidly sold off or wrote down the bulk of its existing

subprime RMBS and CDO inventory, and began building a short position that would allow it to

profit from the decline of the mortgage market. Throughout 2007, Goldman twice built up and

cashed in sizeable mortgage related short positions. At its peak, Goldman's net short position

totaled $13.9 billion. Overall in 2007, its net short position produced record profits totaling $3.7 billion for Goldman's Structured Products Group, which when combined with other mortgage

losses, produced record net revenues of $1.2 billion for the Mortgage Department as a whole.

 

Throughout 2007, Goldman sold RMBS and CDO securities to its clients without

disclosing its own net short position against the subprime market or its purchase of CDS

contracts to gain from the loss in value of some of the very securities it was selling to its clients.

[Guest LAW]

The case study examines in detail four CDOs that Goldman constructed and sold called Hudson 1, Anderson, Timberwolf, and Abacus 2007-AC1. In some cases, Goldman transferred risky assets from its own inventory into these CDOs; in others, it included poor quality assets that were likely to lose value or not perform. In three of the CDOs, Hudson, Anderson and Timberwolf, Goldman took a substantial portion of the short side of the CDO, essentially betting that the assets within the CDO would fall in value or not perform.

 

Goldman's short position was in direct opposition to the clients to whom it was selling the CDO securities, yet it failed to disclose the size and nature of its short position while marketing the securities. While Goldman sometimes included obscure language in its marketing materials about the possibility of its taking a short position on the CDO securities it was selling, Goldman did not disclose to potential investors when it had already determined to take or had already taken short investments that would pay off if the particular security it was selling, or RMBS and CDO securities in general, performed poorly. In the case of Hudson 1, for example, Goldman took 100% of the short side of the $2 billion CDO, betting against the assets referenced in the CDO, and sold the Hudson securities to investors without disclosing its short position. When the securities lost value, Goldman made a $1.7 billion gain at the direct expense of the clients to whom it had sold the securities.

 

In the case of Anderson, Goldman selected a large number of poorly performing assets for the CDO, took 40% of the short position, and then marketed Anderson securities to its clients. When a client asked how Goldman "got comfortable" with the New Century loans in the CDO, Goldman personnel tried to dispel concerns about the loans, and did not disclose the firm's own negative view of them or its short position in the CDO.

 

In the case of Timberwolf, Goldman sold the securities to its clients even as it knew the securities were falling in value. In some cases, Goldman knowingly sold Timberwolf securities to clients at prices above its own book values and, within days or weeks of the sale, marked down the value of the sold securities, causing its clients to incur quick losses and requiring some to post higher margin or cash collateral. Timberwolf securities lost 80% of their value within five months of being issued and today are worthless. Goldman took 36% of the short position in the CDO and made money from that investment, but ultimately lost money when it could not sell all of the Timberwolf securities.

 

In the case of Abacus, Goldman did not take the short position, but allowed a hedge fund, Paulson & Co. Inc., that planned on shorting the CDO to play a major but hidden role in selecting its assets. Goldman marketed Abacus securities to its clients, knowing the CDO was designed to lose value and without disclosing the hedge fund's asset selection role or investment objective to potential investors. Three long investors together lost about $1 billion from their Abacus investments, while the Paulson hedge fund profited by about the same amount. Today, the Abacus securities are worthless.

 

In the Hudson and Timberwolf CDOs, Goldman also used its role as the collateral put provider or liquidation agent to advance its financial interest to the detriment of the clients to whom it sold the CDO securities.

[Guest LAW]

The Deutsche Bank case study describes how the bank's top global CDO trader, Greg Lippmann, repeatedly warned and advised his Deutsche Bank colleagues and some of his clients seeking to buy short positions about the poor quality of the RMBS securities underlying many CDOs, described some of those securities as "crap" and "pigs," and predicted the assets and the CDO securities would lose value. At one point, Mr. Lippmann was asked to buy a specific CDO security and responded that it "rarely trades," but he "would take it and try to dupe someone" into buying it. He also at times referred to the industry's ongoing CDO marketing efforts as a "CDO machine" or "ponzi scheme." Deutsche Bank's senior management disagreed with his negative views, and used the bank's own funds to make large proprietary investments in mortgage related securities that, in 2007, had a notional or face value of $128 billion and a market value of more than $25 billion. Despite its positive view of the housing market, the bank allowed Mr. Lippmann to develop a large proprietary short position for the bank in the RMBS market, which from 2005 to 2007, totaled $5 billion. The bank cashed in the short position from 2007 to 2008, generating a profit of $1.5 billion, which Mr. Lippmann claims is more money on a single position than any other trade had ever made for Deutsche Bank in its history. Despite that gain, due to its large long holdings, Deutsche Bank lost nearly $4.5 billion from its mortgage related proprietary investments.

 

The Subcommittee also examined a $1.1 billion CDO underwritten by Deutsche Bank known as Gemstone CDO VII Ltd. (Gemstone 7), which issued securities in March 2007. It was one of 47 CDOs totaling $32 billion that Deutsche Bank underwrote from 2004 to 2008. Deutsche Bank made $4.7 million in fees from Gemstone 7, while the collateral manager, a hedge fund called HBK Capital Management, was slated to receive $3.3 million. Gemstone 7 concentrated risk by including within a single financial instrument 115 RMBS securities whose financial success depended upon thousands of high risk, poor quality subprime loans. Many of those RMBS securities carried BBB, BBB-, or even BB credit ratings, making them among the highest risk RMBS securities sold to the public. Nearly a third of the RMBS securities contained subprime loans originated by Fremont, Long Beach, and New Century, lenders well known within the industry for issuing poor quality loans. Deutsche Bank also sold securities directly from its own inventory to the CDO. Deutsche Bank's CDO trading desk knew that many of these RMBS securities were likely to lose value, but did not object to their inclusion in Gemstone 7, even securities which Mr. Lippmann was calling "crap" or "pigs." Despite the poor quality of the underlying assets, Gemstone's top three tranches received AAA ratings. Deutsche Bank ultimately sold about $700 million in Gemstone securities, without disclosing to potential investors that its global head trader of CDOs had extremely negative views of a third of the assets in the CDO or that the bank's internal valuations showed that the assets had lost over $19 million in value since their purchase. Within months of being issued, the Gemstone 7 securities lost value; by November 2007, they began undergoing credit rating downgrades; and by July 2008, they became nearly worthless.

[Guest LAW]

Both Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank underwrote securities using loans from subprime lenders known for issuing high risk, poor quality mortgages, and sold risky securities to investors across the United States and around the world.They also enabled the lenders to acquire new funds to originate still more high risk, poor quality loans. Both sold CDO securities without full disclosure of the negative views of some of their employees regarding the underlying assets and, in the case of Goldman, without full disclosure that it was shorting the very CDO securities it was marketing, raising questions about whether Goldman complied with its obligations to issue suitable investment recommendations and disclose material adverse interests.

 

The case studies also illustrate how these two investment banks continued to market new CDOs in 2007, even as U.S. mortgage delinquencies intensified, RMBS securities lost value, the U.S. mortgage market as a whole deteriorated, and investors lost confidence. Both kept producing and selling high risk, poor quality structured finance products in a negative market, in part because stopping the "CDO machine" would have meant less income for structured finance units, smaller executive bonuses, and even the disappearance of CDO desks and personnel, which is what finally happened. The two case studies also illustrate how certain complex structured finance products, such as synthetic CDOs and unclothed credit default swaps, amplified market risk by allowing investors with no ownership interest in the reference obligations to place unlimited side bets on their performance. Finally, the two case studies demonstrate how proprietary trading led to dramatic losses in the case of Deutsche Bank and undisclosed conflicts of interest in the case of Goldman Sachs.

[Guest LAW]

Investment banks were the driving force behind the structured finance products that

provided a steady stream of funding for lenders originating high risk, poor quality loans and that

magnified risk throughout the U.S. financial system. The investment banks that engineered, sold, traded, and profited from mortgage related structured finance products were a major cause of the financial crisis.

[Guest Elvis]

Deutsche Boerse AG and Deutsche Bank the same company?

 

If so, they are taking over the New York Stock Exchange.

 

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-15/nasdaq-takeover-of-nyse-not-dead-with-1-3-billion-more-looming-real-m-a.html

[Guest August]

I do not think they are. Here is some info on their web site.

 

Deutsche Börse Group is far more than a mere marketplace organizer for the trading in shares and other securities. It is one of the largest exchange organizations worldwide. With advanced technology it affords companies and investors access to the world's capital markets.

 

Deutsche Börse has a broader basis than any of its competitors. Its product and service portfolio covers the entire process chain: including securities and derivatives trading and clearing, netting and transaction settlement, custody, the provision of market information, as well as the development and operation of electronic trading systems. With its process-oriented business model, Deutsche Börse increases the efficiency of capital markets: issuers benefit from low capital costs; investors enjoy the advantages of high liquidity and low transaction costs.

 

About 3,600 employees service customers in Europe, America and Asia. Deutsche Börse has locations in Germany, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Spain, Czech Republic and the USA, as well as representative offices in Beijing, Chicago, Dubai, Hong Kong, London, Moscow, New York, Paris, Singapore and Tokyo.

 

http://deutsche-boerse.com

[Guest Dixie]

What happened Goldman Sachs and Dutsche Bank duty to their customers. Instead we have to crime syndicates endorsed and protected by the American and German governments. We know they funded Arab banks, during the crisis. Maybe they actually work for Al Qaeda. We need to Congress to remove these terrorist. I know Mr. Trump will take care of them.

[Guest Luke]

A good read.

 

The real culprits in the events that nearly wrecked global capitalism in 2008 and 2009 were the ratings agencies, Moody's, Standard & Poor's and Fitch.

 

For they were the alchemists, the ones who empowered the wizards of Wall Street to turn lead into gold, or at least create the false impression that that dull grey metal was a glittering prize.

 

This was done with the sweep of a pen, where high-risk debts racked up by, in some cases, the unemployed with no hope of repayment, were classified as AAA investments and then sold around the world.

 

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/guys-in-suits-guilty--but-they-still-get-away-with-murder-20110415-1dhog.html

[Guest LAW]

Between 2004 and 2007, Moody's and S&P issued credit ratings for tens of thousands of U.S. residential mortgage backed securities (RMBS) and collateralized debt obligations (CDOs). Taking in increasing revenue from Wall Street firms, Moody's and S&P issued AAA and other investment grade credit ratings for the vast majority of those RMBS and CDO securities, deeming them safe investments even though many relied on high risk home loans. In late 2006, high risk mortgages began incurring delinquencies and defaults at an alarming rate. Despite signs of a deteriorating mortgage market, Moody's and S&P continued for six months to issue investment grade ratings for numerous RMBS and CDO securities.

 

Then, in July 2007, as mortgage delinquencies intensified and RMBS and CDO securities began incurring losses, both companies abruptly reversed course and began downgrading at record numbers hundreds and then thousands of their RMBS and CDO ratings, some less than a year old. Investors like banks, pension funds, and insurance companies, who are by rule barred from owning low rated securities, were forced to sell off their downgraded RMBS and CDO holdings, because they had lost their investment grade status. RMBS and CDO securities held by financial firms lost much of their value, and new securitizations were unable to find investors. The subprime RMBS market initially froze and then collapsed, leaving investors and financial firms around the world holding unmarketable subprime RMBS securities plummeting in value. A few months later, the CDO market collapsed as well.

 

Traditionally, investments holding AAA ratings have had a less than 1% probability of incurring defaults. But in 2007, the vast majority of RMBS and CDO securities with AAA ratings incurred substantial losses; some failed outright. Analysts have determined that over 90% of the AAA ratings given to subprime RMBS securities originated in 2006 and 2007 were later downgraded by the credit rating agencies to junk status. In the case of Long Beach, 75 out of 75 AAA rated Long Beach securities issued in 2006, were later downgraded to junk status, defaulted, or withdrawn. Investors and financial institutions holding the AAA rated securities lost significant value. Those widespread losses led, in turn, to a loss of investor confidence in the value of the AAA rating, in the holdings of major U.S. financial institutions, and even in the viability of U.S. financial markets.

 

Inaccurate AAA credit ratings introduced risk into the U.S. financial system and constituted a key cause of the financial crisis. In addition, the July mass downgrades, which were unprecedented in number and scope, precipitated the collapse of the RMBS and CDO secondary markets, and perhaps more than any other single event triggered the beginning of the financial crisis.

[Guest LAW]

The Subcommittee's investigation uncovered a host of factors responsible for the inaccurate credit ratings issued by Moody's and S&P. One significant cause was the inherent conflict of interest arising from the system used to pay for credit ratings. Credit rating agencies were paid by the Wall Street firms that sought their ratings and profited from the financial products being rated. Under this "issuer pays" model, the rating agencies were dependent upon those Wall Street firms to bring them business, and were vulnerable to threats that the firms would take their business elsewhere if they did not get the ratings they wanted. The ratings agencies weakened their standards as each competed to provide the most favorable rating to win business and greater market share. The result was a race to the bottom.

 

Additional factors responsible for the inaccurate ratings include rating models that failed to include relevant mortgage performance data, unclear and subjective criteria used to produce ratings, a failure to apply updated rating models to existing rated transactions, and a failure to provide adequate staffing to perform rating and surveillance services, despite record revenues. Compounding these problems were federal regulations that required the purchase of investment grade securities by banks and others, which created pressure on the credit rating agencies to issue investment grade ratings. While these federal regulations were intended to help investors stay away from unsafe securities, they had the opposite effect when the AAA ratings proved inaccurate.

 

Evidence gathered by the Subcommittee shows that the credit rating agencies were aware of problems in the mortgage market, including an unsustainable rise in housing prices, the high risk nature of the loans being issued, lax lending standards, and rampant mortgage fraud. Instead of using this information to temper their ratings, the firms continued to issue a high volume of investment grade ratings for mortgage backed securities. If the credit rating agencies had issued ratings that accurately reflected the increasing risk in the RMBS and CDO markets and appropriately adjusted existing ratings in those markets, they might have discouraged investors from purchasing high risk RMBS and CDO securities, and slowed the pace of securitizations.

 

It was not in the short term economic interest of either Moody's or S&P, however, to provide accurate credit ratings for high risk RMBS and CDO securities, because doing so would have hurt their own revenues. Instead, the credit rating agencies' profits became increasingly reliant on the fees generated by issuing a large volume of structured finance ratings. In the end, Moody's and S&P provided AAA ratings to tens of thousands of high risk RMBS and CDO securities and then, when those products began to incur losses, issued mass downgrades that shocked the financial markets, hammered the value of the mortgage related securities, and helped

trigger the financial crisis.

[Guest Joe Camel]

I hope all these firms hang. But, The Securities and Exchange Commission prosecute the real culprits, Daniel Mudd and Richard Syron, the chief executives of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Millions of people are feeling the pain of those two jerkoffs.

[Guest LAW]

It was not in the short term economic interest of either Moody's or S&P, however, to provide accurate credit ratings for high risk RMBS and CDO securities, because doing so would have hurt their own revenues. Instead, the credit rating agencies' profits became increasingly reliant on the fees generated by issuing a large volume of structured finance ratings. In the end, Moody's and S&P provided AAA ratings to tens of thousands of high risk RMBS and CDO securities and then, when those products began to incur losses, issued mass downgrades that shocked the financial markets, hammered the value of the mortgage related securities, and helped trigger the financial crisis.

 

 

Your answer: Standard & Poor's falsified their finance ratings to make money, which thus caused millions of Americans to loose money. Now they are going for entitlements.

 

* We have affirmed our 'AAA/A-1+' sovereign credit ratings on the United States of America.

* The economy of the U.S. is flexible and highly diversified, the country's effective monetary policies have supported output growth while containing inflationary pressures, and a consistent global preference for the U.S. dollar over all other currencies gives the country unique external liquidity.

* Because the U.S. has, relative to its 'AAA' peers, what we consider to be very large budget deficits and rising government indebtedness and the path to addressing these is not clear to us, we have revised our outlook on the long-term rating to negative from stable.

* We believe there is a material risk that U.S. policymakers might not reach an agreement on how to address medium- and long-term budgetary challenges by 2013; if an agreement is not reached and meaningful implementation is not begun by then, this would in our view render the U.S. fiscal profile meaningfully weaker than that of peer 'AAA' sovereigns.

Standard & Poor's Ratings Services said today that it affirmed its 'AAA' long-term and 'A-1+' short-term sovereign credit ratings on the U.S. Standard & Poor's also said that it revised its outlook on the long-term rating of the U.S. sovereign to negative from stable. Our ratings on the U.S. rest on its high-income, highly diversified, and flexible economy. It is backed by a strong track record of prudent and credible monetary policy, evidenced to us by its ability to support growth while containing inflationary pressures. The ratings also reflect our view of the unique advantages stemming from the dollar's preeminent place among world currencies.

 

"Although we believe these strengths currently outweigh what we consider to be the U.S.'s meaningful economic and fiscal risks and large external debtor position, we now believe that they might not fully offset the credit risks over the next two years at the 'AAA' level," said Standard & Poor's credit analyst Nikola G. Swann.

 

"More than two years after the beginning of the recent crisis, U.S. policymakers have still not agreed on how to reverse recent fiscal deterioration or address longer-term fiscal pressures," Mr. Swann added.

 

In 2003-2008, the U.S.'s general (total) government deficit fluctuated between 2% and 5% of GDP. Already noticeably larger than that of most 'AAA' rated sovereigns, it ballooned to more than 11% in 2009 and has yet to recover.

 

On April 13, President Barack Obama laid out his Administration's medium-term fiscal consolidation plan, aimed at reducing the cumulative unified federal deficit by US$4 trillion in 12 years or less. A key component of the Administration's strategy is to work with Congressional leaders over the next two months to develop a commonly agreed upon program to reach this target. The President's proposals envision reducing the deficit via both spending cuts and revenue increases.

 

Key members in the U.S. House of Representatives have also advocated fiscal tightening of a similar magnitude, US$4.4 trillion, during the coming 10 years, but via different methods. House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan's plan seeks to balance the federal budget by 2040, in part by cutting non-defense spending. The plan also includes significantly reducing the scope of Medicare and Medicaid, while bringing top individual and corporate tax rates lower than those under the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts.

 

We view President Obama's and Congressman Ryan's proposals as the starting point of a process aimed at broader engagement, which could result in substantial and lasting U.S. government fiscal consolidation. That said, we see the path to agreement as challenging because the gap between the parties remains wide. We believe there is a significant risk that Congressional negotiations could result in no agreement on a medium-term fiscal strategy

until after the fall 2012 Congressional and Presidential elections. If so, the first budget proposal that could include related measures would be Budget 2014 (for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, 2013), and we believe a delay beyond that time is possible.

 

Standard & Poor's takes no position on the mix of spending and revenue measures the Congress and the Administration might conclude are appropriate. But for any plan to be credible, we believe that it would need to secure support from a cross-section of leaders in both political parties.

 

If U.S. policymakers do agree on a fiscal consolidation strategy, we believe the experience of other countries highlights that implementation could take time. It could also generate significant political controversy, not just within Congress or between Congress and the Administration, but throughout the country. We therefore think that, assuming an agreement between Congress and the President, there is a reasonable chance that it would still take a number of years before the government reaches a fiscal position that stabilizes its debt burden. In addition, even if such measures are eventually put in place, the initiating policymakers or subsequently elected ones could decide to at least partially reverse fiscal consolidation.

 

In our baseline macroeconomic scenario of near 3% annual real growth, we expect the general government deficit to decline gradually but remain slightly higher than 6% of GDP in 2013. As a result, net general government debt would reach 84% of GDP by 2013. In our macroeconomic forecast's optimistic scenario (assuming near 4% annual real growth), the fiscal deficit would fall to 4.6% of GDP by 2013, but the U.S.'s net general government debt would still rise to almost 80% of GDP by 2013. In our pessimistic scenario (a mild, one-year double-dip recession in 2012), the deficit would be 9.1%, while net debt would surpass 90% by 2013. Even in our optimistic scenario, we believe the U.S.'s fiscal profile would be less robust than those of other 'AAA' rated sovereigns by 2013. (For all of the assumptions underpinning our three forecast scenarios, see "U.S. Risks To The Forecast: Oil We Have to Fear Is?," March 15, 2011, RatingsDirect.

 

"Our negative outlook on our rating on the U.S. sovereign signals that we believe there is at least a one-in-three likelihood that we could lower our long-term rating on the U.S. within two years," Mr. Swann said. "The outlook reflects our view of the increased risk that the political negotiations over when and how to address both the medium- and long-term fiscal challenges will persist until at least after national elections in 2012."

 

Some compromise that achieves agreement on a comprehensive budgetary consolidation program--containing deficit-reduction measures in amounts near those recently proposed, and combined with meaningful steps toward implementation by 2013--is our baseline assumption and could lead us to revise the outlook back to stable. Alternatively, the lack of such an agreement or a significant further fiscal deterioration for any reason could lead us to lower

the rating.

[Guest LAW]

Standard & Poor's is one of many McGraw-Hill Companies

 

NEW YORK, Jan. 19, 2011 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- The Board of Directors of The McGraw-Hill Companies (NYSE: MHP) today approved the 38th consecutive annual increase in the regular quarterly cash dividend on the Corporation's common stock.

 

The quarterly dividend will increase 6.4 percent from $0.235 to $0.250 per share. The dividend will be payable on March 10, 2011, to shareholders of record on February 24, 2011. The new annualized dividend rate of $1.00 per share represents an average compound annual dividend growth rate of 9.8% since 1974.

 

"The Board's decision to raise the dividend extends a long and successful record of advancing shareholder value," said Harold McGraw III, chairman, president and CEO of The McGraw-Hill Companies. "Increasing the dividend underscores the strength of our financial position and confidence in our long-term growth prospects."

The McGraw-Hill Companies has paid a dividend each year since 1937 and is one of fewer than 25 companies in the S&P 500 that has increased its dividend annually for the last 38 years.

[Guest Fedup]

Here is the people I have on my new list of shame.

 

Brian Clarkson, Lloyd Blankfein, Angelo Mozilo, Roland Arnall, Maurice R. Greenberg.

[Guest x]

Google's Eric Schmidt just warned about the new dot com bubble

 

Facebook, Groupon, Zynga overvaluation = Russian Money Laundering

 

These privately held tech companies are receiving huge investments from Goldman Sachs and DST.

 

Being private, it is easy to manipulate their valuation and profit from it.

 

 

http://wallybee.wordpress.com/2011/01/21/kremlin-owns-facebook/

[Guest ptownowner]

Goldman/Sachs...the poster-boy of White-Collar Criminals... But we'll not see a soul incarcerated.

 

to paraphrase Joseph Stalin: to steal one persons' retirement is a crime...to steal the retirement savings of an entire population...is a bailout-able statistic!

[Guest Kevin]

The sad part is Timothy Geithner urged Andrew Cuomo to back off on investigations of the banks and rating agencies.

[Guest Fedup]

If Coumo did why Goldman Sachs shorted the market for most of 2007 would loose their status as an authorized dealer in government securities. POTUS has done nothing to change the norm.

[Guest Conservative Slayer]

FBI saw threat of loan crisis

 

A top official warned of widening mortgage fraud in 2004, but the agency focused its resources elsewhere.

 

"It has the potential to be an epidemic," Chris Swecker, the FBI official in charge of criminal investigations, told reporters in September 2004. But, he added reassuringly, the FBI was on the case. "We think we can prevent a problem that could have as much impact as the S&L crisis," he said.

 

WHO WAS IN CHARGE? MR DEREGULATION AND FREE MARKETS CURE ALL DUBYA BUSHIE!!!!

 

http://articles.latimes.com/2008/aug/25/business/fi-mortgagefraud25

[Guest Brown Hornet]

You got it.

 

President Obama is fighting these cats 24/7.

 

Truth, Justice, and the American way.

[Guest HUMAN]

We ALL know how the financial crisis came about. The democrats are just throwing a bone out to distract from the root cause.

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You got it.

 

President Obama is fighting these cats 24/7.

 

Truth, Justice, and the American way.

[Guest Fedup]

We ALL know how the financial crisis came about. The democrats are just throwing a bone out to distract from the root cause.

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

This type of cronyism is beyond politics.

 

European regulators in Brussels announced two sweeping antitrust investigations into the world’s largest banks on Friday, opening a second front in the battle to rein in a $600 trillion business that until now has operated mostly in the shadows. The regulators are focusing on whether the banks have shut out competitors in recent years in a bid to keep profit margins high.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/30/business/global/30swaps-europe.html

[Guest Fedup]

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-people-vs-goldman-sachs-20110511?print=true

 

It wouldn't be hard for federal or state prosecutors to use the Levin report to make a criminal case against Goldman. I ask Eliot Spitzer what he would do if he were still attorney general and he saw the Levin report. "Once the steam stopped coming out of my ears, I'd be dropping so many subpoenas," he says. "And I would parse every potential inconsistency between the testimony they gave to Congress and the facts as we now understand them."

 

I ask what inconsistencies jump out at him. "They keep claiming they were only marginally short, that it was more just servicing their clients," he says. "But it sure doesn't look like that." He pauses. "They were $13 billion short. That's big — 50 percent of their risk. It was so completely disproportionate."

 

Lloyd Blankfein went to Washington and testified under oath that Goldman Sachs didn't make a massive short bet and didn't bet against its clients. The Levin report proves that Goldman spent the whole summer of 2007 riding a "big short" and took a multibillion-dollar bet against its clients, a bet that incidentally made them enormous profits. Are we all missing something? Is there some different and higher standard of triple- and quadruple-lying that applies to bank CEOs but not to baseball players?

 

This issue is bigger than what Goldman executives did or did not say under oath. The Levin report catalogs dozens of instances of business practices that are objectively shocking, no matter how any high-priced lawyer chooses to interpret them: gambling billions on the misfortune of your own clients, gouging customers on prices millions of dollars at a time, keeping customers trapped in bad investments even as they begged the bank to sell, plus myriad deceptions of the "failure to disclose" variety, in which customers were pitched investment deals without ever being told they were designed to help Goldman "clean" its bad inventory. For years, the soundness of America's financial system has been based on the proposition that it's a crime to lie in a prospectus or a sales brochure. But the Levin report reveals a bank gone way beyond such pathetic little boundaries; the collective picture resembles a financial version of The Jungle, a portrait of corporate sociopathy that makes you never want to go near a sausage again.

 

Upton Sinclair's narrative shocked the nation into a painful realization about the pervasive filth and corruption behind America's veneer of smart, robust efficiency. But Carl Levin's very similar tale probably will not. The fact that this evidence comes from a U.S. senator's office, and not the FBI or the SEC, is itself an element in the worsening tale of lawlessness and despotism that sparked a global economic meltdown. "Why should Carl Levin be the one who needs to do this?" asks Spitzer. "Where's the SEC? Where are any of the regulatory bodies?"

 

This isn't just a matter of a few seedy guys stealing a few bucks. This is America: Corporate stealing is practically the national pastime, and Goldman Sachs is far from the only company to get away with doing it. But the prominence of this bank and the high-profile nature of its confrontation with a powerful Senate committee makes this a political story as well. If the Justice Department fails to give the American people a chance to judge this case — if Goldman skates without so much as a trial — it will confirm once and for all the embarrassing truth: that the law in America is subjective, and crime is defined not by what you did, but by who you are.

[Guest Dustry]

Goldman Sachs has capital. Goldman Sachs knows how to make money with their capital. This a good thing.

 

The problem is that Goldman screwed their own clients to make that money. Thus, less investors trust them or want to be in the radar of a media that is looking for the ultimate story that slays the Vampire Squid for good.

 

Read more: http://curiouscapitalist.blogs.time.com/2011/05/20/is-goldman-sachs-doomed/#ixzz1MwddLY6e

 

In 2009, Goldman made $13 billion on $52 billion, for a profit margin of 26%. Last year, the firm's profits fell to $8 billion, and that's only the beginning of the profit drop. The Goldman printing press has been turned off, most likely for good.