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Goldman Caught Using European Loophole To Help Massively Understate Greek Deficit
The Business Insider ^ | 2/9/10 | Vincent Fernando

Posted on 02/09/2010 8:10:19 AM PST by FromLori

This looks pretty bad for both Goldman and Greece, as if things could look worse.

According to a scathing piece in Der Spiegel, European statisticians in Luxembourg have had a very difficult time getting proper Greek economic and financial data for years.

Worse yet, Goldman Sachs appears to have been helping Greece take advantage of a European regulatory loophole in order to understate its deficits:

Der Spiegel:

(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: bubblemafia; convictthem; euro; europe; globaleconomy; goldman; goldmansachs; greece; hankpaulson; henrypaulson; imprisonmentnow; jailthem; paulson; pigs; wallstreet; wallstreetcrooks
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To: 2banana; FromLori
Gosh, that information has been posted so many times to FR, but I don't have time to do a google site search to find the original URL.

Is this the first time you've heard about this???

Maybe Lori has the URL; also, if you are interested in Goldman Sachs, do NOT miss the articles that Matt Tiabi wrote. They are scathing indictments of GS and their BUBBLE MACHINE

21 posted on 02/09/2010 8:37:15 AM PST by hennie pennie
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To: FromLori

Ever since I heard about the PIGS and the STUPIDS, I’ve presumed that Soros’s handiwork was in evidence.


22 posted on 02/09/2010 8:38:38 AM PST by hennie pennie
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To: FromLori

I just read that Blankenfein the CEO of Goldman had accepted a reduced pay package of 9 million dollars worth of stock, rather than the $100 million for which he was eligible. Isn’t that noble of him?


23 posted on 02/09/2010 8:39:09 AM PST by Eva (Obama bin Lyin)
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To: FromLori

Goldman Sachs has all the appearance of being a criminal enterprise. It should be prosecuted under RICO and broken up.

A participant in the capital markets who shorts for its own accounts products while at the same time promoting those products to its customers needs to be put out of business.


24 posted on 02/09/2010 8:43:32 AM PST by Truth is a Weapon (Truth, it hurts soooo good!)
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To: FromLori
The day will come when certain groups of people will be hunted through the streets and strung up on lamp posts.

Goldman employees better buy running shoes.

25 posted on 02/09/2010 8:45:39 AM PST by ClearCase_guy (I was born in America, but now I live in Declinistan.)
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To: FromLori

Goldman Sachs is so dirty they need to be shut down immediately. Have their assets seized and their excutives interrogated by the FBI. I am talking dark room, bright light bulb and rubber hose.

Of course I know this will not happen since Goldman Sachs owns the Government. We are a nation of Goldman Sachs, by Goldman Sachs and for Goldman Sachs.


26 posted on 02/09/2010 8:49:08 AM PST by Sprite518
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To: hennie pennie

What are you looking for the donations to zero?

http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2009/07/jpmorgan-ceo-jamie-dimon-donat.html

http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/list.php?order=A

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/04/04/summers/

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/19/business/19dimon.html?_r=1

http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2009/07/president-obamas-favorite-banker.html

http://www.noquarterusa.net/blog/2008/09/21/baracks-wall-street-problem-is-now-americas/

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123146096981566339.html

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/31234647/obamas_big_sellout/print

Obama coddles bankers

His credibility sinks further as Democrats schmooze the lobbyists

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10038/1033826-373.stm

In his year-end interviews with friendly news outlets like The Washington Post and National Public Radio, President Obama had a curious choice for his biggest accomplishment of the year: the bailout of the financial sector.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Obama_s-pick-for-man-of-the-year_-George-W_-Bush-8677553-79997637.html

Irked, Wall St. Hedges Its Bet on Democrats

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/08/us/politics/08lobby.html?hp


27 posted on 02/09/2010 8:55:23 AM PST by FromLori (FromLori)
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To: Notary Sojac

28 posted on 02/09/2010 9:02:11 AM PST by Fish Speaker (Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?)
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To: FromLori; 2banana
Yes, last year you told me that BHO receive more campaign contributions from Goldman Sachs, ALONE, than all of Wall Street contributed to McCain/Palin --- and at that time you posted the URL, and freeper 2banana is interested in reading the original link.

There were SO many GS threads last fall, that I'm having difficulty located the precise posting you made about the HUMUNGOUS campaign contributions to BHO.

I was 'floored' with your information, because before Meg Whitman was caught doing insider trading at GS, she was on the Board of Directors at Goldman Sachs --- so it was utterly bizarre to me that GS wouldn't contribute heavily to either Meg's BFF, Mitt Romney, or to John McCain whose campaign she also worked on.

29 posted on 02/09/2010 9:08:59 AM PST by hennie pennie
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To: hennie pennie; nikos1121; Fred Nerks; null and void; stockpirate; george76; PhilDragoo; Candor7; ...
Image and video hosting by TinyPic

Goldman Sachs implicated in the potential Greek DEFAULT which may bring the EURO into serious difficulty.

Goldman Sachs, ALONE, contributed more to BHO's presidential campaign than McCain/Palin received from ALL of Wall Street.

30 posted on 02/09/2010 9:15:28 AM PST by LucyT
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To: hennie pennie

This is the story I think you mean but there have been so many posts about it I don’t which FR one you mean sorry.

Let’s start with the numbers. Why is a first term Senator pulling down almost $300,000 a year from Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG, Countrywide Financial, and Washington Mutual? He has not even completed his fourth year in the Senate and received a total of $1,093,329.00 from these eight companies and their employees. (all data from OpenSecrets.org). John McCain’s numbers, according to OpenSecrets.org for the period 1990-2008 (i.e., 18 years worth of data) only collected $549,584.00. In other words, Barack is receiving $273,582.25 (and 2008 is not over) per year while McCain raised a paltry $30,532.44.

Want another shocker? Barack Obama has received more from one source–Goldman Sachs $542,252.00–than McCain has from all of the companies combined. Who the hell is more beholden to lobbyists? And why does a junior Senator from Illinois rate this kind of dough?

http://www.noquarterusa.net/blog/2008/09/21/baracks-wall-street-problem-is-now-americas/


31 posted on 02/09/2010 9:21:10 AM PST by FromLori (FromLori)
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To: FromLori; Liz; STARWISE; onyx; hoosiermama

HOLY CRAP!!!

“In the Greek case the US bankers devised a special kind of swap with fictional exchange rates. That enabled Greece to receive a far higher sum than the actual euro market value of 10 billion dollars or yen. In that way Goldman Sachs secretly arranged additional credit of up to $1 billion for the Greeks.

This credit disguised as a swap didn’t show up in the Greek debt statistics.”


32 posted on 02/09/2010 9:26:12 AM PST by maggief
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To: FromLori

Bookmark


33 posted on 02/09/2010 9:29:42 AM PST by maggief
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To: FromLori

Man, that devil photo looks a lot like a Goldman trader to me.

Trader? Or should I say traitor?

Oh well, in the case of money, I ma sure they think there is no such think as country or patriotism or even good .... only good profits however they are made.

Remember the Matt Taibbi article calling Goldman “A vampire squid stuck on the face of humanity ........ Forever.

How to stop them from stamping on our necks ...... forever?


34 posted on 02/09/2010 9:37:03 AM PST by DontTreadOnMe2009 (So stop treading on me already!)
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To: hennie pennie; blam; CondoleezzaProtege; onyx; LucyT; STARWISE; CutePuppy; Condor51; ...
Goldman Sachs, ALONE, contributed more to BHO's presidential campaign than McCain/Palin received from ALL of Wall Street. Perhaps Henry Paulson and Timothy Geitner and Barack Obama will help pooor little GS out.

G/S has a good friend in WH COS Rahm Emanuel.

Goldman Sachs Will Be Sitting Pretty With Emanuel in the Obama White House
By: Timothy P. Carney, Examiner Columnist, Nov 21, 2008

Goldman Sachs always has clout in Washington, as evidenced by the firm’s alumni serving as Treasury secretaries under both Presidents Bush and Clinton. Today, in these tumultuous times of bailouts and meltdowns when the investment banking leviathan needs Washington more than ever before, Goldman can leverage its most valuable asset yet—incoming White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel. Goldman Sachs is the giant of Wall Street, and more than any other investment bank, Goldman is surviving the current financial storm.

Traditionally a Democratic booster, and one of Barack Obama’s top sources of funds in this past election, Goldman has always had some particularly strong allies within government. Emanuel is one such ally. An interesting early chapter in the Goldman-Emanuel relationship took place in the setting of Bill Clinton’s campaign for the White House in 1992. Clinton hired Emanuel as his chief fundraiser.

At the same time, however, Emanuel was on the payroll of Goldman Sachs, receiving $3,000 per month from the firm to “introduce us to people,” in the words of one Goldman partner at the time. This is certainly a noteworthy relationship, but it’s one that has almost entirely escaped scrutiny. (snip)

In his four terms in Congress, Emanuel has raised $74,750 from Goldman, making the firm his number four source of funds. Goldman has helped Emanuel. How has Emanuel helped Goldman? The most obvious answer, as mentioned in this column two weeks ago, is in Emanuel’s lead role in shepherding the “$700 billion” bailout—first proposed by former a Goldman CEO, Bush Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson—through the skeptical House.

Of course, back in the Clinton days, Goldman benefited from NAFTA and the bailout of the Mexican currency, with Emanuel pushing NAFTA through Congress, and Rubin hammering out the peso bailout. Did Goldman improperly funnel money to the Clinton campaign by subsidizing Emanuel’s salary in 1992? Did Goldman’s help to Clinton spur the Democratic president to push NAFTA and the Mexican bailout?

The answers to these questions are opaque, and with Emanuel burrowed deep within the Obama White House, the continued relationship between Goldman Sachs and Obama’s right hand man won’t be easy to follow.

Watch which regulations of Wall Street Obama fights for. Watch where the bailout money goes. And don’t be surprised Goldman soon sitting pretty once again.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/TimothyCarney/

THINGS WE DO NOT KNOW ABOUT RAHM Did Wall Street Rahm reveal all of his ties to financial institutions involved in Obama's trillion dollar federal bailout of financials.......like Goldman Sachs, for instance?

35 posted on 02/09/2010 9:58:36 AM PST by Liz (A person who smiles in the face of adversity probably has a scapegoat nearby.)
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To: Liz; maggief; hoosiermama; FromLori; stephenjohnbanker; hennie pennie

The following is from Zero hedge (link) does not work for more - (sorry)

The following is from Zero Hedge.

“In the pre-math of the Greek collapse, conspiracy theories are swirling about who keeps blowing Greek CDS spreads wider. The answer, so far completely unconfirmed, is that a large US investment bank (we “wonder” just which US investment bank dominates the sovereign CDS market), and two major hedge funds are behind the CDS “attacks” on Greece, Portugal and Spain. According to Jean Quatremer, and his Coulisses de Bruxelles, UE blog, the plan involves blowing spreads to record levels, and is prompted by the hedge funds’ anger at not having been allocated substantial amount of the recent €8 billion GGB issue, in order to lock in profits from their CDS long exposure. Being thus unhedged with a short bias, their alternative is to continue buying protection else risking to mark losses on their extensive CDS short risk exposure.”


36 posted on 02/09/2010 10:06:45 AM PST by onyx (BE A MONTHLY DONOR - I AM)
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Never mind - FromLori has the working link in her post:

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/two-hedge-funds-one-bank-there-concerted-effort-destroy-greece


37 posted on 02/09/2010 10:12:04 AM PST by onyx (BE A MONTHLY DONOR - I AM)
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To: onyx

Thanks


38 posted on 02/09/2010 10:15:37 AM PST by stephenjohnbanker (Support our troops, and vote out the RINO's!)
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To: jmaroneps37

Thanks for posting the Collins report from July 10, 2009.

It was a warning that should have been heeded.


39 posted on 02/09/2010 10:19:09 AM PST by onyx (BE A MONTHLY DONOR - I AM)
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To: FromLori; Liz; onyx; STARWISE; maggief

Wonder if this was the “international scam” an Indian newspaper wrote about last August. The article said it would make Made-off look like small change.

Found it in the middle of the night, when I went back to reread and save it in the morning it was gone.


40 posted on 02/09/2010 10:31:00 AM PST by hoosiermama (ONLY DEAD FISH GO WITH THE FLOW.......I am swimming with Sarahcudah! Sarah has read the tealeaves.)
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