|
In a case that exemplifies the degree to which Wall Street's largest financial firms have been shielded from meaningful prosecution for their role in the financial crisis of 2008, the Justice Department late on Thursday announced that no charges would be brought against Goldman Sachs for its role in fueling the sub-prime mortgage debacle.
'No Charges' Against Goldman Sachs, say Feds, 8/10/12
The deal, the $580 million sale of a highflying technology company, Dragon Systems, had just been approved by its board and congratulations were being exchanged. But even then, at that moment of celebration, there was a sense that something was amiss.
Goldman Sachs and the $580 Million Black Hole, 7/14/12
It doesn’t happen often, but sometimes God smiles on us. Last week, he smiled on investigative reporters everywhere, when the lawyers for Goldman, Sachs slipped on one whopper of a legal banana peel, inadvertently delivering some of the bank’s darker secrets into the hands of the public.
Documents Show that Goldman Sachs Engaged in Naked Short Selling, 5/15/12
Goldman's business model is Grand theft
Goldman Sachs: Making Money by Stealing It , 3/18/12
The European Union, just like everything else, is merely another scheme to concentrate wealth in a few hands at the expense of European citizens, who are destined, like Americans, to be the serfs of the 21st century.
Bankers Have Seized Europe: Goldman Sachs Has Taken Over, 11/26/11
It is no secret that Goldman Sachs runs Wall Street. Even Ray Charles could see that that Goldman Sachs runs our government as evidenced by the former Goldman Sachs gangsters who have run our economy into the ground (e.g., Clinton’s Secretary of Treasury Goldman Sachs’ Rubin, Bush’s Secretary of Treasury Goldman Sachs’ “too big to fail” Paulson, Goldman Sachs “Tiny Tim” Geithner presently serves as Obama’s Secretary of Treasury, etc.).
Goldman Sachs Goodfellas, 11/18/11
Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) posted its second quarterly loss as a public company on Tuesday as its investment portfolio lost billions of dollars in value.
Goldman is suffering as market turmoil and new regulations squeeze trading profits. The bank set aside 59 percent less money for compensation, in the latest sign of how weaker revenue is cutting into pay on Wall Street.
Goldman posts only its second quarterly loss, 10/18/11
In a stunning statement, Alessio Rastani, a trader has prophesized that millions of people will lose their savings within a year!
However, he qualified the stunning statement with the remark that not only traders but just any ordinary investor now needs to think about how to make money in a down market and protect their assets. Those who don’t act now will see their savings wiped out entirely.
In an interview with the BBC, Rastani says “This is not a time right now for wishful thinking that governments are going to sort things out. The governments don't rule the world, Goldman Sachs rules the world. The savings of millions of people are going to vanish” within a year.
"This economic crisis is like a cancer, if you just wait and wait thinking this will go away, just like a cancer it's going to grow and it's going to be too late”
Alessio Rastani Makes Prime Time TV Circuit, 9/28/11
Goldman Sachs and two other firms have agreed with the New York banking regulator to end the practice known as robo-signing, in which bank employees signed foreclosure documents without reviewing case files as required by law, the Wall Street Journal said.
In an agreement with New York's financial-services superintendent, Goldman, its Litton Loan Servicing unit and Ocwen Financial Corp also agreed to scrutinize loan files for evidence they mishandled borrowers' paperwork and to cut mortgage payments for some New York homeowners, the Journal said.
Goldman Sachs and two other firms agree to end robo-signing, 9/1/11
In a rundown patch of Detroit, enclosed by a cyclone fence and barbed wire, stands an unremarkable warehouse that investment bank Goldman Sachs has transformed into a money-making machine.
The derelict neighborhood off Michigan Avenue is a sharp contrast to Goldman's bustling skyscraper headquarters near Wall Street, but the two operations share one important element: management by the bank's savvy financial professionals.
A string of warehouses in Detroit, most of them operated by Goldman, has stockpiled more than a million tonnes of the industrial metal aluminum, about a quarter of global reported inventories.
Simply storing all that metal generates tens of millions of dollars in rental revenues for Goldman every year.
There's just one problem: only a trickle of the aluminum is leaving the depots, creating a supply pinch for manufacturers of everything from soft drink cans to aircraft.
The resulting spike in prices has sparked a clash between companies forced to pay more for their aluminum and wait months for it to be delivered, Goldman, which is keen to keep its cash machines humming and the London Metal Exchange (LME), the world's benchmark industrial metals market, which critics accuse of lax oversight.
Analysts question why London's metals market allows big financial players like Goldman to own the warehouses which store huge quantities of metal even as they trade the commodity.
Goldman's new money machine: warehouses, 7/28/11
They weren't murderers or anything; they had merely stolen more money than most people can rationally conceive of, from their own customers, in a few blinks of an eye. But then they went one step further. They came to Washington, took an oath before Congress, and lied about it.
Thanks to an extraordinary investigative effort by a Senate subcommittee that unilaterally decided to take up the burden the criminal justice system has repeatedly refused to shoulder, we now know exactly what Goldman Sachs executives like Lloyd Blankfein and Daniel Sparks lied about. We know exactly how they and other top Goldman executives, including David Viniar and Thomas Montag, defrauded their clients. America has been waiting for a case to bring against Wall Street. Here it is, and the evidence has been gift-wrapped and left at the doorstep of federal prosecutors, evidence that doesn't leave much doubt: Goldman Sachs should stand trial.
Matt Taibbi: People vs. Goldman Sachs, 5/11/11
Goldman Sachs executives deceived clients in order to profit off the brewing financial crisis and then misled Congress when asked to explain their actions, concluded a top lawmaker who led a two-year investigation into Wall Street's role in the meltdown.
Blankfein Could Face Criminal Prosecution For Role In Financial Crisis, 4/14/11
Kaufman explained that in 1991 Goldman Sacks restructured commodities market by instituting speculation on food futures. “This was a new kind of investment that was made for people that wanted to put a lot of money into commodities and just let it sit there for a long time and let it grow,” he explained. Previously commodities markets operated under a system of physical speculators and hedgers who operated based on seasons as food products changes. However, Goldman Sacks created a structure where they continued to buy the product out of seas, based on futures as opposed to conditions.
Goldman to blame for global food crisis, 2/11/11
Goldman Sachs executives have long been among the most richly paid on Wall Street in the best of times. They are now poised to reap a windfall that was sown in the dark days of the financial crisis in 2008.
Nearly 36 million stock options were granted to employees in December 2008 — 10 times the amount issued the previous year — when the stock was trading at $78.78. Since those uncertain days, Goldman’s business has roared back and its share price has more than doubled, closing on Tuesday at nearly $175.
The options grant is among the many details that emerge from a study of regulatory filings and internal partnership documents by The New York Times and Footnoted.com, a division of Morningstar that scrutinizes corporate disclosures. These filings provide a much fuller picture of both Goldman’s compensation and its elite partnership of 475 people who run the firm.
Study Points to Windfall for Goldman Partners, 1/18/11
Goldman Sachs has decided to bar private U.S. clients from getting a piece of an oversubscribed $1.5 billion investment in Facebook because of “intense media attention,” the securities firm tells the Wall Street Journal Monday. In a very brief article the Journal says Goldman has “concluded the level of media attention might not be consistent with the proper completion of a U.S. private placement under U.S. law.”
Goldman’s Facebook Offering: Americans Need Not Apply, 1/17/11
Perhaps even more intriguing than Goldman's direct stake in Facebook is the "special purpose vehicle" that it is creating to allow its wealthy clients to invest in Facebook alongside the firm ... Goldman did not pioneer this type of investment structure. Over the last several months, a number of smaller Wall Street brokerages have formed vehicles to enable individual investors to acquire shares in private Internet companies like Facebook and Twitter ... The S.E.C. generally requires companies with more than 499 shareholders to report their quarterly earnings and audited financial information to the public. Under a technical interpretation of the statute, the vehicle that Goldman is creating for its clients would be considered a single Facebook shareholder of record. But several securities lawyers say the S.E.C. could argue that these structures subvert the spirit of the law and look through the vehicle to count the investors individually. – Bloomberg
Goldman Circumvents the Rules, 1/5/11
In this edition of the Reality Report, Gary Franchi takes a closer look at Goldman Sachs and their 450 million dollar investment into Facebook and Danny Panzella weighs in on the connection to the end of free speech. Doctor Joseph Mercola joins us, just in time for flu season, to tell us about the harmful effects of vaccines. We are also joined by Charles Goyette, the New York Times Best Selling Author of the book, "The Dollar Meltdown" to discuss where the American economy is going in 2011. Angie Franchi brings us the headlines which includes information on a new spy drone being utilized overseas that may be coming to a sky near you. She also reports on the effect pesticides could have on unborn children. Angie reports on the latest Wikileaks scandal and what the 112th Congress plans to do in the coming months. As always we take a dip into the mailbag to see what our viewers think, and we brand a new Enemy of the State.
Investing for Control, 1/4/11
Recent disclosures from the Federal Reserve reveal that honesty was one of the earliest casualties of the 2008 financial crisis. These disclosures contain a number of juicy tidbits, like the fact that Goldman Sachs received tens of billions of dollars in direct and indirect succor from the Fed. Thanks to these spectacularly large taxpayer-funded bailouts, Goldman was able to continue “doing God’s Work” – as CEO Lloyd Blankfein infamously remarked – like the work of producing billion-dollar trading profits without ever suffering a single day of losses.
Totally Busted: Truth About Goldman's Bailout by the Fed, 12/15/10
The latest attempt by Goldman Sachs to prove they are good people, and that their raping of America did not happen, is through a new print ad being run in WSJ that shows they are in bed with government on clean energy. These guys are so intertwined with government that it appears that they don't even understand anymore what free markets and entrepreneurship are all about. Their new act signals that they will continue to rape Americans, but in politically correct ways.
Government Sachs and Its Latest Propaganda Campaign, 9/29/10
Goldman Sachs sent $4.3 billion in federal tax money to 32 entities, including many overseas banks, hedge funds and pensions, according to information made public Friday night. Goldman Sachs disclosed the list of companies to the Senate Finance Committee after a threat of subpoena from Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Ia. Asked the significance of the list, Grassley said, "I hope it's as simple as taxpayers deserve to know what happened to their money." He added, "We thought originally we were bailing out AIG. Then later on ... we learned that the money flowed through AIG to a few big banks, and now we know that the money went from these few big banks to dozens of financial institutions all around the world."
Goldman reveals where bailout cash went, 7/26/10
A congressional commission pressed Goldman Sachs executives Wednesday to spell out how much their company has earned from its exotic bets against the housing market, including $20 billion in wagers that helped force a $162 billion taxpayer bailout of the American International Group. However, Goldman's president and chief risk officer told members of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission that their company never breaks out its figures that way. "We can dig and dig and dig," Goldman President Gary Cohn said in sworn testimony. "We won't find that report."
Goldman can't say how much it made from housing crash, 6/30/10
Goldman Sachs is profiting from this disaster, and if they aren't long, they are shorting companies that make their profits from the Gulf because shorting the Gulf is the only sure bet right now. As of the end of the first quarter 2010, Goldman Sachs had 188,762 shares of Nalco (NLC) in their portfolio,.having shed 94,672 shares since the Fourth Quarter 2009. In six weeks, they have made a million bucks, a 33 percent increase in market value. They own Nalco bonds as well. Too bad we can't see their trading activity for NLC during the month of April and May. It would be interesting to see if/how they traded this particular equity from April 1st to present day. And now the LA Times reports that BP has refused EPA orders to switch dispersants and not one low-life from BP is in jail for violation of this order.
Media ignores Goldman Sachs' ties to Corexit dispersant, 5/19/10
This essay shows the pervasive influence of Goldman Sachs and its units (like the Goldman-Robert Rubin-funded Hamilton Project embedded in the Brookings Institution) in the Obama government. These names are in addition to those compiled on an older such list and published here at FDL. In the future, I will combine the names here and those on the earlier article but I urge readers to look at the earlier list too (links below). Combined, this is the largest and most comprehensive list of such ties yet published.
An Updated List of Goldman Sachs Ties to the Obama Government Including Elena Kagan, 5/8/10
It turns out that Goldman Sachs really did place shorts on TransOcean stock days before the explosions rocked the rig in the Gulf of Mexico sending stocks plunging while GS profits soared -- benefitting once again from a huge disaster, having done the same with airline stocks prior to 911 then again with the housing bubble.
No joke: GS shorted Gulf of Mexico, 4/30/10
A medical investigation into suspicious outbreaks and propaganda used to sell drugs and vaccines has exposed investment bankers at JP Morgan-Chase (JPMC) and Goldman Sachs (GS) for plotting to shock/stress, frighten, poison, and kill billions of people most profitably--pharmaceutically--according to the Editor-in-Chief of Medical Veritas journal. While researching a powerful Partnership for New York City (PFNYC), uniting Wall Street's wealthiest industrialists, Harvard-trained public health expert, Dr. Leonard Horowitz, and investigative journalist, Sherri Kane, discovered shocking evidence of a conspiracy to commit global genocide by generating diseases and death to advance profitable pharmaceutical depopulation.
Horowitz: Profitable Depopulation Plot Links JP Morgan-Chase & GS To Vaccination Contaminations And BigPharma Corruption, 4/29/10
At a time when Congressional hearings are set to call testimony from some Goldman Sachs employees, it is vital to understand how widespread that institution’s ties are to the Obama administration. This diary shows the pervasive influence of Goldman Sachs and Goldman created institutions (like the Hamilton Project embedded in the Brookings Institution), employees and influence peddlers in the Obama administration.
While many of the people listed below formerly worked for Goldman Sachs or its offshoots (like the Hamilton Project, including all three of that project’s first Directors) influence can be exerted not only through people but through money, awards, sponsored scholarship, and creation of an agenda favorable to Goldman Sachs (which is where Brookings and the Hamilton Project come in and have proved especially useful to Goldman Sachs).
It is further of note that although Goldman Sachs has been the center of attention especially since Matt Taibbi’s insightful investigative journalism, that I have not been able to find a comprehensive list of the influence of Goldman Sachs in this administration. Recently in the New York Post, for instance, Michelle Malkin wrote a good article called "All the President’s Goldman Men" but she only listed the usual suspects like Larry Summers, Timothy Geithner, Rahm Emanuel, Gary Gensler and Mark Patterson.
But that’s just the tip of the Goldman Sachs iceberg. Here you will find, I believe, the most comprehensive list of people-groups yet available to show how Obama’s administration has really become the Goldman Sachs administration. But I need your help. I suspect there are far more people out there with such ties that I have missed even though I have spent lots of time researching this issue. If you know of other people who should be on this list, please help out and give the details in a comment to this diary.
List of Goldman Sachs People in the Obama Government: Names Attached to the Giant Squid’s Tentacles, 4/27/10
|
