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Goldman Sachs and the Art of Ripping Your Clients' Faces Off
The Motley Fool ^ | April 19, 2010 | By Morgan Housel

Posted on 04/26/2010 12:48:30 PM PDT by DontTreadOnMe2009

"Traders and salesmen would boast about 'ripping the faces off their clients' --

structuring and selling complicated deals that clients did not understand but that generated huge profits for the bank that was brokering the trade."

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


TOPICS:
KEYWORDS: crtime; goldman; obama; sec
Ripping their own customers faces off, and then boasting about it.

Kinda tells you everything you need to know about Goldman Sachs, doesn't it ???

From The Motley Fools

1 posted on 04/26/2010 12:48:30 PM PDT by DontTreadOnMe2009
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To: DontTreadOnMe2009

They are not gonna far.

Which is fine.


2 posted on 04/26/2010 12:55:01 PM PDT by Del Rapier
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To: DontTreadOnMe2009

Motley? Those commie windbags? (/sarcasm off).


3 posted on 04/26/2010 12:57:14 PM PDT by Wolfie
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To: DontTreadOnMe2009

Compared to what the government does to all of us, Goldman Sachs is a piker.


4 posted on 04/26/2010 1:04:31 PM PDT by mulligan
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To: DontTreadOnMe2009

Never use the e-mail when you can talk.
Never talk when you can nod.


5 posted on 04/26/2010 1:10:26 PM PDT by AU72
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To: DontTreadOnMe2009

Hey, they gave Obama a million bucks (which he refuses to return), how bad can they be? (Sarc)


6 posted on 04/26/2010 1:14:45 PM PDT by ozzymandus
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To: DontTreadOnMe2009

Maybe a few did this, bu this is more propoganda to sell banking “reform”, i.e. state control.


7 posted on 04/26/2010 1:44:57 PM PDT by Rennes Templar
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To: DontTreadOnMe2009

If they did in fact put together the worst mortgage-backed securities they could find and then pawn them off as low-risk investments so that they could short them, then they ought to be jailed and fined and their clients who lost money ought to be able to sue the hell out of them.


8 posted on 04/26/2010 1:54:42 PM PDT by Blood of Tyrants (The US will not die with a whimper. It will die with thundering applause from the left.)
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To: DontTreadOnMe2009

Buyer beware.


9 posted on 04/26/2010 1:56:09 PM PDT by Uncle Miltie (http://www.teapartyslogans.com/cgi-bin/web/index.cgi)
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To: Blood of Tyrants

There was a youtube video of a couple of guys that I saw a year or more before the whole crash. They had guys “explaining” these high-risk mortgage packages. It is sad and sickening looking back, put the guys did it in a very funny way.

Talking about taking all of these lousy mortgages and selling them to guy’s in Quater or someplace. Then packaging them together with another pile from some other place. Wrapping them all together and give it some fancy name, like Diversified Plus Real Estate, or Platinum Property Long Term Investment Fund.

And NO ONE really even knows what is in them. (Heh - sort of like the Health Care “Reform” Bill).

What gets me is, most of these risky mortgages were made because Clinton allowed, and in some cases MADE the banks make them. And now Obama wants to stick the government’s fingers in the pie EVEN MORE!


10 posted on 04/26/2010 2:02:46 PM PDT by 21twelve ( UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES MY ARSE: "..now begin the work of remaking America."-Obama, 1/20/09)
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To: 21twelve

Yep, those mortgages were possible because of pressure from the Clinton administration and lawsuits from Obama’s ACORN and now the government wants MORE control!


11 posted on 04/26/2010 2:09:07 PM PDT by Blood of Tyrants (The US will not die with a whimper. It will die with thundering applause from the left.)
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To: 21twelve

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzJmTCYmo9g these guys?


12 posted on 04/26/2010 5:11:25 PM PDT by EVO X
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To: DontTreadOnMe2009

This is pathetic.

Out of control bankers swindling people with fraudulent deals and it’s “buyer beware” blah, blah, blah

Wake up and smell the coffee, the bankers have stolen all the money from the treasury. There is nothing left.

This is fraud on a massive scale and people need to got to jail.


13 posted on 04/26/2010 5:41:42 PM PDT by Bluestateredman (Self-sufficiency is the American Way)
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To: EVO X

THANK YOU very much. Yes - that was the episode I recalled. I find it hard to believe my recollection was half-way on the mark. Harder to believe you knew what I was talking about and found it!

Thanks again.

BTW - ANYONE could look around at the prices of houses and KNOW that was not what the real value was. My mom, in hearing of our neighbors selling their homes would say “Wow - and your house was nicer than theirs - your house is worth a lot of money now!” I would reply “If we wanted to sell it that’s what we could get, but it isn’t worth that much.”


14 posted on 04/26/2010 10:31:33 PM PDT by 21twelve ( UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES MY ARSE: "..now begin the work of remaking America."-Obama, 1/20/09)
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To: 21twelve
Harder to believe you knew what I was talking about and found it!

Google British banking humor..

15 posted on 04/27/2010 4:21:52 AM PDT by EVO X
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To: mulligan

Yep. I disagree with people who think all the buyers of these CDO’s did not know that it was entirely possible that a short seller had input into the construction of these CDOs. I heard a guy on CNBC yesterday who said the political class in Washington is looking for a scapegoat for the financial crisis and is trying to pin all the blame on the private sector. The truth is actually that both the Clinton and Bush administrations artificially pumped up the housing market and the economy through excessive risky lending by Fannie and Freddie, and then some of the private sector lenders got caught up in competing with those GSEs. The federal government and many of the same people in congress who are criticizing Wall Street, are the underlying cause of the housing bubble and the financial crisis.

On this CDO deal, I don’t think Goldman did anything wrong except that as a general principle it’s unethical for a short seller to have any input into the construction of a long-side investment product. However it’s possible that all the buyers of these CDOs were sophisticated enough to know that shorts could have been involved in picking the securities, in which case Goldman was not involved in unethical behavior. But I’m also hearing a lot of deceptive talk that suggests that somehow Goldman knew at the time that these CDOs were sure to collapse in value, when of course AT THE TIME they sold these products nobody knew for sure what would happen to the housing mortgage market and these CDOs. Some people at Goldman clearly thought the CDOs would lose value, but that was just their opinion and prediction at that time, and nobody knew for sure what would happen. People involved in the financial markets constantly make predictions that are just their opinions at the time and always involve substantial uncertainty.


16 posted on 04/27/2010 7:46:10 AM PDT by your local physicist (Don't blame me. I wasn't fooled by anyone. I crossed my fingers and voted for McCain.)
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To: DontTreadOnMe2009
Ripping their own customers faces off, and then boasting about it.

The only people affected are the people foolish enough to put their pension funds on the market.

If you weren't a client, you really shouldn't give a crap about this story whatsoever.

I for one don't have one iota of sympathy for anyone who lost any amount of money on the stock market.

It doesn't matter if your playing craps in Vegas, buying a car, selling a product on ebay or investing on the stock market, there are risks involved.

17 posted on 04/27/2010 2:09:53 PM PDT by BigSkyFreeper ("Ked Tennedy would have been plowed... I mean, proud today..." - Senator Max Baucus (Drunk-MT))
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To: mulligan
Besides. Fannie and Freddie are to blame. As is the Community Reinvestment Act passed under Carter which was renewed in 1995 by Clinton.

Goldman Sachs becomes the easy target because it's run and supported by Democrats. They're the whipping boy for government going in there, and nationalizing the entire investment industry with "reform".

18 posted on 04/27/2010 2:13:58 PM PDT by BigSkyFreeper ("Ked Tennedy would have been plowed... I mean, proud today..." - Senator Max Baucus (Drunk-MT))
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To: Blood of Tyrants

On top of that GS was the market maker for this crap


19 posted on 05/02/2010 6:34:07 AM PDT by dennisw (It all comes 'round again --Fairport)
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