Posted on 04/26/2010 12:48:36 PM PDT by Rufus2007
While questions swirl about the ins and outs of the Securities and Exchange Commission charges against Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS), and the eventual result is no clearer.
According to CNBC "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer, after the release of several e-mails from Goldman traders, including Fabrice Tourre, who described the investments at the firm "like Frankenstein," the investment bank finds itself in an untenable position.
Cramer told MSNBC's April 26 "Morning Joe" that Goldman really has no defense if, as the government alleges, Goldman misled investors when it established a mortgage-backed security in 2007 for a hedge fund client looking to bet against the housing market. And that's in addition to facing heat from shareholders for not revealing that it received a Wells Notice from the SEC.
...more (w/video)...
(Excerpt) Read more at newsbusters.org ...
Fire them all and then close down Goldman Sachs
“the blood vampire squid stuck on the face of humanity”
Will Cramer also get into trouble for misleading investors?
“Cramer Predicts...”
Screeching halt!!!!
They will probably pay for the retirement of the current Goldman officials with the ‘Fine’ the ‘company’ is supposed to pay.
If Cramer is as accurate about this as his stock predictions, Goldman has nothing to worry about.
Who are you suggesting do this?
Where did the government get the legal power to do such a thing? If it is not legal, it is pure confiscation!
I suspect they’re looking to say - give us $2-3 billion or we’re coming and knocking on your door. More like extortion.
This is all for show to make John Q Public think he got some justice, when in reality these people are getting out with a slap on the wrist. A relatively modest fine for one of the largest frauds in history. They made out with tens of billions of stolen tax dollars (i.e. bailout) for their themselves and business allies and they only have to pay a fraction of it back as a "fine."
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/Goldman-Sachs-Masters-of-the-Bailout-41741137.html
Hmmmm, Chicago style extortion.
See also:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2500879/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2500879/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2500879/posts
Goldman Sachs and the Art of Ripping Your Clients’ Faces Off
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2500879/posts
The are one of the main brokers for the US Treasury. They are helping fund the debt. How can you shut them down?
Hah, so much for his breathless, overly earnest assurances straight to the camera the day the story broke that he had sources, oh yes good sources, within Goldman, telling him that there was nothing wrong, it was all above board, blah blah. Youtube links are easily found.
Not bloody likely! Far more likely that after the whatever Financial Reform Charade (which is whipping the popular angst against Goldman Sachs to push it through by "popular demand") passes or gets killed, SEC and Goldman will quietly settle the suit with Goldman not admitting wrongdoing but paying small fine to "compensate" the government's legal expenses, and both sides declaring victory. After Financial Reform is over (either way), so will be the political circus and neither SEC nor Goldman will need or want to spend the huge amounts of time and money and risk adverse result in the trial.
Goldman Sachs Money for Obama Wins at Monopoly: Kevin Hassett - BL, 2010 April 26, by Kevin Hassett
Government rules will establish quasi-monopolies, and discourage competition. In exchange, the affected firms will be exposed to constant bureaucratic meddling, but will have the ability to manage this by influencing political appointments. Obama and his team have made a show of threatening the big firms, and this might have given the impression that the financial revisions will hurt their value. But for old-time AT&T shareholders, the deal was a net positive for many years. The same will be true today for the big financial companies. It is clear that many investors understand this. While Obama has been bashing the big financial institutions, markets have noticed that the proposed legislation probably is good for their bottom lines. ..... SEC Suit ..... Why might the Dodd bill be good for the bottom line? Former Federal Reserve economist Larry Lindsey observed in a memo to House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio that, “Needless to say, the large Wall Street firms are not complaining; they will permanently benefit from having lower borrowing costs.” Lowering borrowing costs will, of course, increase profits. That’s why the big financials have performed so solidly during the period that the financial reform went from possible to almost certain. An April 20 letter that seconded the Lindsey analysis by Charles Plosser, the president of the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank, explained how it will work. Government Guarantee The Dodd bill will establish a set of companies that will be implicitly established as too big to fail, or TBTF. These firms will, according to Plosser, have an advantage: “when stock and bondholders of TBTF firms win, they profit, but when they lose, they become eligible for a government bailout.” This will lower the cost of capital for the firms so designated, since lenders will understand that the U.S. government will be there should calamity ensue. If you lend to a little guy, you lose if he runs into trouble. If you lend to a big guy, you get your money back from taxpayers. ..... The Dodd bill will turn Goldman Sachs into the equivalent of AT&T, JPMorgan into a cable-TV company, and the Fed into the FCC. ..... Kevin Hassett, director of economic-policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. The financial overhaul bill creeping toward law is more than a thousand pages, but it has a simple story line. President Barack Obama and the Democrats have decided to turn Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and a few other financial giants into organizations that resemble AT&T Corp. in the 1950s.
Simply put, the Democratic "financial reform" will do nothing less than create the likes of "Too Big To Fail" Government-Sponsored Enterprises, the Fannies and Freddies of financial industry, and make taxpayers and consumers of all financial services pay for the bailout "slush" fund, while making the likelyhood of systemic failure larger and more likely.
No wonder Democrats are pushing this before or instead of the unpopular "climate change" bill.
The Securities Exchange Act of 1934, that’s where.
Goldman sold a security without disclosure of material information to buyers of the security. It’s a pretty clear-cut violation of the securities law.
There is now a shareholder lawsuit that was announced yesterday against Goldman, because the SEC told Goldman it was investigating these issues with a “Wells Notice” some eight months ago. Goldman never made the Wells Notice public. They don’t have to unless there would be a 10% or greater loss to shareholders. Well, when the SEC announced the suit, GS’s price fell by more than 10%. Turns out Goldman would be much better off if they had announced the Wells Notice.
Between the SEC’s suit, the shareholder suit, the FSA in Britain opening up an investigation and perhaps the Germans opening up a full investigation - Goldman’s goose is cooked unless they can settle this case as quickly as possible, “without admission of wrongdoing” - just to get it off the table and prevent more lawsuits and investigations from being started.
Management can get jobs at Treasury, the Federal Reserve, the SEC, or the White House.
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