The Goldman, Bush, Paulson, Geithner fraud

[hvactec]

The key points copied:

* The people at Goldman Sachs invested in mortgage-backed securities they expected to decline in value in order to make money off the insurance claims.

* Due to a long-standing relationship, they went to AIG for a kind of insurance — credit default swaps — which were not regulated.

* They then used other companies, including Société Générale, to purchase more of the unregulated insurance that AIG might not have otherwise underwritten in order to manage its own risk.

* When Goldman’s investments declined, they submitted insurance claims for the losses, but insisted on determining the amount of their damages on their own, without any input from AIG, any auditor or the market.

* After Goldman got as much money out of AIG as they thought they could, their stock analysts issued a report about how AIG was bleeding cash and their creditors wouldn’t negotiate, without mentioning that AIG was bleeding cash because of them and that Goldman was the creditor that wouldn’t negotiate. AIG’s stock tanked.

* The government stepped in, took an 80 percent share in AIG and then paid Goldman and the other creditors all the money they’d asked AIG for at the start of the negotiations in 2007, without using their power to force AIG’s creditors to negotiate.

Read more Here Better Economics: The Goldman, Bush, Paulson, Geithner fraud

 

[georgephillip]

In the Roaring Twenties Goldman Sachs Trading Company was a closed end fund (called a trust way back when) Goldman Sachs created the fund and offered it to the public at $104 per share, "stuffed with conflicted investments while paying Goldman a hefty management fee..."

A few years later, after the Crash of '29 the fund was trading at less than $2 per share.

"On May 20, 1932, Walter Sachs, President of Goldman Sachs Trading Company, was grilled by the Senate Committee on Banking and Currency.

"The implication was the same as the current round of Senate hearings: Goldman royally fleeced its customers to line its own pockets."

Pam Martens: Why a Criminal Case Against Goldman Matters...

 

[Neubarth]

As I have been saying for a long long time, Goldman Sachs needs to be shut down. All of their officers need to be tried for "Treason against the American People" and then executed by military firing squad. We need to set an example for all bankers in the future. Then we need to dismantle all of the other large banks that might be tempted to think that "It is just business as usual in America."

Any act of corruption needs to be punished with death by firing squad. If we need to shoot a million bankers, so be it. It is about time that we straightened things out in the financial world.

Banks and all types of financial institutions should serve the public good. They can loan money at interest and pay interest on savings. As long as they are honest they will be welcomed as a functioning part of this country. Any dishonesty or greed should be quickly punished.

 

[georgephillip]

"There is no government of the people, by the people, and for the people only the rule of private interests."

Paul Craig Roberts wraps his article on CounterPunch with the above quote.

Roberts was an assistant Treasury secretary in the Reagan Administration.
He was a WSJ editor for the op-ed page.
He's also a PhD Economist with no use for today's Wall Street gamblers.

Roberts again:

"In today's America, Karl Marx's criticisms of capitalism are understated. Wherever one looks, the scene is one of government using taxpayers' money to enrich private interests.

"Taxes are collected from people who can barely make it, and the revenues are transferred to multi-millionaires and billionaires.

"The federal government piles debt on the backs of heavily burdened and dispossessed Americans in order that investment banksters can pay annual bonuses that exceed the lifetime earnings of most Americans."

When you first started using the word "treason" I thought you had bumped your head one time too many.

Now, I'm not so sure...