Feds won't charge Goldman for infamous trades

[1prophet]

Feds won't charge Goldman for infamous trades
http://bottomline.nbcnews.com/_news...t-charge-goldman-for-infamous-trades#comments

WASHINGTON -- Neither Goldman Sachs Group Inc nor its employees will face U.S. criminal charges related to trades they made during the financial crisis that were highlighted in a 2011 U.S. Senate report, the Justice Department said on Thursday.

The unusual announcement not to prosecute criminally came in an unsigned statement attributed to the department.
Few expected the bank to face criminal charges, but in April 2011, U.S. Senator Carl Levin asked for a criminal investigation after the subcommittee he leads spent years looking into Goldman.

Levin's subcommittee held televised hearings as part of its inquiry, which centered on a subprime mortgage product known as Abacus. He said Goldman misled Congress and investors.

Goldman employee Fabrice Tourre still faces a civil complaint from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. He has denied any wrongdoing and was the only person accused.

Goldman itself settled with the SEC for $550 million in July 2010 without admitting wrongdoing.

The statement from the Justice Department said that officials there "have determined that, based on the law and evidence as they exist at this time, there is not a viable basis to bring a criminal prosecution with respect to Goldman Sachs or its employees in regard to the allegations set forth in the report" from Levin's subcommittee.
Justice Department investigators and prosecutors worked on their inquiry for "more than a year," the statement said.
Those working on the inquiry included officials in the department's Criminal Division and in the U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan, the statement said.
They "ultimately concluded that the burden of proof to bring a criminal case could not be met based on the law and facts as they exist at this time," the statement continued.

"If any additional or new evidence emerges, today's assessment does not prevent the department from reviewing such evidence and making a different determination, if warranted," the statement said.

Clinton, Bush, Obama, etc. does it matter since Goldman Sachs rules them all.

 

[nehalem256]

Feds won't charge Goldman for infamous trades
http://bottomline.nbcnews.com/_news...t-charge-goldman-for-infamous-trades#comments
Clinton, Bush, Obama, etc. does it matter since Goldman Sachs rules them all.

Well no wonder

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-...ads-split-with-obama-as-ge-jilts-him-too.html

Four years ago, employees of New York-based Goldman gave three-fourths of their campaign donations to Democratic candidates and committees, including presidential nominee Barack Obama. This time, they’re showering 70 percent of their contributions on Republicans.

Maybe things are not so rosy for Obama's reelection after all. Goldman has spoken

 

[BoomerD]

Of course not...the SEC and the FED ARE Goldman Sachs. They tell the regulators what and who to regulate.

This is a perfect example of the inmates running the prison.

BTW, if you want to know how badly corrupted the system is...see the "map" on this page:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/02/government-sachs-goldmans_n_210561.html

 

[Svnla]

This is why I LOL whenever folks from the left said "we are for the working men/women".

Uh huh, right. D and R = both screwing us.

 

[Kadarin]

Of course they won't be charged. Nobody has been charged in regards to the whole financial mess of '08, and nobody ever will be.

 

[woolfe9999]

Do any of you even know the applicable criminal statutes, and what evidence exists to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt? I suspect not, but let's not let that get in the way of the knee-jerk conspiracy theories.

 

[bfdd]

Time for heads to roll.

 

[nehalem256]

Do any of you even know the applicable criminal statutes, and what evidence exists to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt? I suspect not, but let's not let that get in the way of the knee-jerk conspiracy theories.

I thought that was the point of the patriot act so we didnt have to worry about silly things like that. Throw them in jail as economic terrorists; problem solved.

 

[1prophet]

Do any of you even know the applicable criminal statutes, and what evidence exists to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt? I suspect not, but let's not let that get in the way of the knee-jerk conspiracy theories.

Money talks, justice walks, unless you rip off the 1% like Madoff.:whiste:


But in the meantime you can jerk your knee towards this non-conspiracy.


Crime of the Century

Posted on June 21, 2012

Presidents Bush and Obama have both said the financial crisis was unforseen and could not have been prevented. THEY LIED! The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC) concluded: 1) The crisis was preventable 2) Regulators looked the other way 3) Big banks took irresponsible risks. Two presidents say the crisis could not have been prevented, but the inquiry into the crisis concluded otherwise, and yet, not one media story calls attention to the presidential cover up.

The financial crisis demonstrates media collusion to cover up crimes committed by elites.



Not all regulators looked the other way while financial crimes were being committed. But their voices were silenced by a culture of corruption. One of those regulators was Armando Falcon. During the Bush administration, he was director of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO), which had regulatory authority over Fannie and Freddie. They collapsed in 2008 while holding 6.3 TRILLION of debt and home mortgages, which are now explicitly backed by the taxpayer. Trillions of dollars of those mortgages are toxic assets that may never be worth anything. In sworn testimony before the FCIC, Mr. Falcon said the Bush White House and media blocked OFHEO’s attempts to protect taxpayers from financial sector risk.




In 2003, Falcon released a report characterizing Fannie and Freddie (F&F) as a “systemic risk”. A few days before the report was released, Falcon received a call from Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines. According to Falcon, Raines “threatened to bring down me and the agency” if the risk report was released. Then, an official from Treasury called him and said F&F lobbyists were pressuring other agencies to prevent the report’s release. Finally, on the day the report was released, the Bush White House fired Falcon and media focused on his firing while giving “scant coverage” to the systemic risk report. Falcon said “this was of course exactly the result intended by those who engineered the timing of the announcement of my replacement”.



Who engineered the timing of the announcement? It was the Bush White House who fired Falcon and refused to delay the announcement when Falcon asked them to do so. And national media used the firing to cover up the 2003 risk report. Think about it. On April 9, 2010, Falcon testified that Fannie Mae’s CEO threatened him, and the Bush White House carried out those threats. There’s only one reason why this is not a national, front page story. Left, right and center media colluded to cover up the crime. F&F held 6.3 TRILLION of home mortgages when they collapsed in 2008, for the preceding five years, Congress, Bush, Obama and media covered up the risk to taxpayers. Mr. Falcon talks about the cover up of F&F’s systemic risk report in his opening statement to the FCIC. He recounts the incident at 4min/30sec into the clip. Click here to watch it.

FCIC Commissioner Byron Georgiou said F&F were ”cooking the books“. Georgiou addressed lobbying practices while F&F were cooking the books and said “this was an equal opportunity bipartisan lobbying push over the YEARS when Fannie and Freddie were engaging in this practice”. Falcon said F&F lobbyists used “strong arm tactics” and “misinformation” to block legislation that would’ve protected taxpayers. In the same link, Georgiou said this was “a particularly egregious lobbying abuse”. Why? Because F&F were Government Sponsored Entities (GSE’s) backstopped by taxpayers, so their lobbyists were quasi government employees who blocked regulation that would’ve protected taxpayers. Commissioner Hennessey said F&F losses will cost taxpayers 389 BILLION. But Georgio said this doesn’t include 1.5 TRILLION of toxic assets purchased by Treasury and the Fed, “which may never be worth anything”.

Fannie and Freddie weren’t alone in cooking the books. Neil Barofsky was Special Inspector General of the TARP bailout program. Regarding the nine biggest banks, he said “it didn’t matter if they were cooking the books on their balance sheets, Treasury was giving them money anyway. In fact, if they had even larger holes on their balance sheets due to FRAUD, that would’ve been only more reason for Treasury to give them money”. Click here to watch Mr. Barofsky’s comment on bank fraud.

Last but not least, the Federal Government has made systemic fraud the new national accounting standard. In April of 2009, Congress pressured the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) to relax mark to market rules. These rules were put into place to prevent the accounting fraud that led to Enron’s collapse. They require large companies to mark assets on their balance sheet to current market value. As opposed to making up some value the assets might be worth in the future. But thanks to the relaxation of mark to market rules, the Federal Government and large companies can inflate the value of assets on their balance sheets to cover up toxic assets. This is particularly important for covering up the toxic assets of Fannie, Freddie and Wall Street. When F&F collapsed in 2008, the government assumed responsibility for all losses. All of F&F’s 6.3 TRILLION of debt/assets are being kept off the Federal Budget. And thanks to Dodd/Frank, taxpayers are explicitly backstopping the debt of Too Big To Fail (TBTF) Wall Street banks.

Simon Johnson is a former IMF chief economist and is currently on the Congressional Budget Office council of advisors. In testimony before the Senate Budget Committee, he said the contingent liabilites of TBTF banks represent 40% of GDP [5.6 Trillion] and should be scored in the budget. Ranking Republican Judd Gregg replied, “we don’t score a lot of things around here.” Dr. David Flynn is an economist at the University of North Dakota. He said if all the toxic assets owned by the Federal government had to be marked to current market value, the national debt would be “21 Trillion”. This is Enron style accounting fraud on steroids. Not one politician points out the budgetary effect of fraud, i.e., if your accountant is cooking the books and embezzling from your business, you can cut spending to zero and still go bankrupt. This is the reality facing American taxpayers. Some members of Congress need to marched out of the Capitol in handcuffs.



In 2001, the national debt was 5.7 Trillion. It took 230 years to accrue the 5.7 Trillion, but in a little more than a decade, the national debt has tripled. The Federal deficit is the annual budgetary shortfall that increases the national debt. Republican Jeb Hensarling said the Federal deficit has grown 800% since Democrats took control of the House. But this is part of the childish blame game both parties use to cover up the truth. Simon Johnson pointed out the real reason for the deficit explosion in his testimony before the Senate Budget Committee. It’s primarily the result of a huge drop in revenue to State and Federal government due the financial crisis and recession.

One of the FCIC’s conclusions was bank regulators “looked the other way” while Wall Street engaged in massive fraud. One of those regulators was the Federal Reserve, specifically, the New York branch of the Fed. Guess who was President of the NY Fed while fraud was blowing up the housing bubble? It was Tim Geithner, Obama’s Treasury Secretary. While President of the NY Fed, Geithner was legally charged with examining the books of Wall Street banks. He did such a good job of covering up their fraud, Obama selected him to run Treasury. More fraud! If there are no consequences for regulators who refuse to enforce the rules, why would Dodd/Frank finance reforms protect taxpayers?


FCIC hearings went on for nearly a year with little or no media coverage. Instead, citizens get fraudulent spin from politicians and media who are covering up systemic fraud. Taxpayers are being forced to pay for the cost of fraud and irresponsible risks taken by big banks. Senator Brown cites the CBO who says propping up failing banks will cost taxpayers 8.6 TRILLION. The following link will get you to all the FCIC hearings and final report.

http://fcic.law.stanford.edu/hearings
William Black was Deputy Director of the Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation in the 80′s when fraud and corruption collapsed the S&L industry. He’s currently a law professor at the University of Missouri. In a radio interview, Black makes a compelling case for pursuing criminal prosecutions of Wall Street bankers. He says the FBI, in 2004, testified in the House of Representatives and predicted mortgage fraud would cause a financial crisis. And in 2006, anti-fraud experts warned all major lenders that “liars loans” had a “90%” incidence of fraud.

Instead of limiting liars loans, lenders “massively increased” their number to the point that when the subprime bubble burst, 1 in 3 mortgages were liars loan. Mr. Black said this amounts to a million cases of fraud per year by the financial industry, and named Citigroup who recieved a 306 BILLION bailout. He said the Federal Home Finance Administration (FHFA), has filed civil suits against the 17 largest banks because they “knew” they were engaged in fraud. But Black is calling for criminal prosecutions because civil suits are being used to give the false impression of government due diligence.


According to Mr. Black, the statute of limitations has not run out, so email his interview to your attorney, local prosecutor, Sheriff, State Attorney General, and U.S. Attorney. Policiticians and media also need to be held accountable for their part in the crime of the century. Racketeering, Influence and Corrupt Organization (RICO) statutes would throw a wide net over the criminals. Work with friends, neighbors, co-workers and business associates to pressure prosecutors to act. Click here to listen to Mr. Black’s interview.

The Dodd-Frank Finance Reform Act is a continuation of fraud by politicians, banks and media. President Obama signed Dodd/Frank into law under the guise of “consumer protection” and eliminating future bailouts of Too Big To Fail banks. But Senator Sherrod Brown says the biggest banks are even bigger, and ”can risk bankruptcy at the expense of society rather than bearing the losses themselves.” Dodd/Frank created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and placed it under the authority of the Federal Reserve. But the Fed is one of the regulators that ignored the bank fraud and systemic risk which caused the crisis. Oops! Dodd/Frank also gave the Executive Branch (FDIC) “resolution authority”. This is a euphemism for unlimited bailout authority without a vote by Congress. The following links are short segments of Congressional hearings on the CFPB, which is putting burdensome regulations on small banks that didn’t cause the crisis, and doing nothing to reform Wall Street. Link1, Link2, Link3


Why is financial reform targeting small banks that didn’t cause the crisis and doing nothing to reform Wall Street? It’s the result of regulatory capture. Former IMF chief economist Simon Johnson wrote the book “13 Bankers”. He says the few hundred people who run the six largest banks have “captured the state” and have power to “extort” money from governments. Click here to watch his presentation on the subject. Edward Kane is a senior research fellow at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). He also says Dodd/Frank’s failure to reform Wall Street is the result of “regulatory capture”.

How did Wall Street banks achieve regulatory capture? It began with financial deregulation in President Clinton’s second term. The PBS documentary The Warning does a great job exposing Federal policy to NOT regulate financial fraud. For a look at the results of this policy, watch CNBC’s House of Cards. Two key pieces of legislation deregulated financial markets, they were Gramm-Leach-Bliley (GLB), and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act (CFMA). This legislation led to the creation of a 650 TRILLION, unregulated derivatives market. This is more than the combined GDP of all the world’s economies, and it’s controlled by a small number of investment banks. The interconnected nature of derivatives markets has created global systemic risk which allows banks to extort money from governments. In other words, banks can extort bailouts from governments by threatening to blow up the global economy.



What can citizens do to restore the rule of law? First, use the evidence of fraud compiled by William Black to force action by public prosecutors. Second, reinstate Glass Steagall. Glass Steagall was enacted in 1933 to curb bank speculation that caused the 1929 market crash. It kept bank speculation in check for 70 years until it was repealed by GLB in 1999. Third, repeal the CFMA. This would make banks responsible for their derivatives losses. In “The Warning”, Larry Summers was a Clinton advisor who pushed for the repeal of Glass Steagall. He was also Obama’s advisor on financial reform. Oops! You can find two informative articles on Glass Steagall, GLB and the CFMA by clicking on the pdf file ”Knowledge is Power” at the end of this post. Open the file and the articles are under the “Financial Markets” section. They are easy to understand even if you don’t have any knowledge of finance.

Thomas Hoenig is President of the Kansas City Federal Reserve. He is calling for the reinstatement of Glass Steagall as a means to break up big banks. Glass Steagall forces banks to separate high risk gambling in derivatives from commercial banking activities, this removes derivatives losses from the government safety net and protects taxpayers. Mr. Hoenig refers to TBTF banks as Systemically Important Financial Institutions (SIFI’s), and says they “are not consistent with the rules of capitalism”. Why? Because as he points out, one of the fundamental rules of capitalism is, if you exercise poor judgement you must be allowed to fail. Click here and you’ll see a video playlist, to watch his presentation click on “Thomas Hoenig Lunch Keynote” in the playlist.

Rush Limbaugh and other propagandists on the right say the financial crisis occured because government forced banks to make loans to people who couldn’t pay them back. They specifically blame the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), which was signed into law by President Jimmy Carter. So we’re supposed to believe a thirty year old piece of legislation suddenly caused the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Mr. Black presents documented evidence that refutes the lies of propagandists like Rush. The collapse of Fannie and Freddie are also blamed on affordable housing goals set by government. But Armando Falcon and James Lockhart both testified that affordable housing goals were low on the list of Fannie and Freddie’s priorities. Click on the following links to hear their statements. LInk1, LInk2


The majority of subprime loans were originated by mortgage brokers like Countrywide, who were exempt from the CRA. Wall Street banks were knowingly buying worthless loans from brokers, bundling, securitizing, and selling them off around the world with fraudulent Triple A ratings. The Government’s role was not that it forced banks to make bad loans, but an ideological committment to NOT regulate Wall Street fraud. The liars loans referenced by Mr. Black were a direct result of Fed policy. The Federal Reserve’s jurisdictional authority includes setting underwriting standards, so they could’ve stopped the massive increase in liars loans at any time. After Countrywide collapsed under the weight of it’s huge portfolio of liars loans, Bank of America purchased the wreckage. But in testimony before a Senate Banking committee, Stanford economist Paul Pfleiderer said the ratings agency Moody’s reported that Bank of America’s credit rating is “five notches above what it would be without government support.” So taxpayers are subsidizing all the liars loans Bank of America purchased from Countrywide.

 

[dmcowen674]

Feds won't charge Goldman for infamous trades

Of course not, Goldman and the rest own the Feds.

Everyone knows this.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Of course not, Goldman and the rest own the Feds.

Everyone knows this.

Yeah but it's ok since it wasn't Rep corruption.

 

[gevorg]

 

[MovingTarget]

Of course not...the SEC and the FED ARE Goldman Sachs. They tell the regulators what and who to regulate.

This is a perfect example of the inmates running the prison.

BTW, if you want to know how badly corrupted the system is...see the "map" on this page:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/02/government-sachs-goldmans_n_210561.html

This. Is anyone really surprised? I certainly am not. Goldman Sachs is too big and too powerful. They need to be broken up for the good of our economy at large.