Goldman was the bookie forcing the bettor to bet the favorite with a spread no one could cover in a game where the NCAA champions were placed as the favorite over the NBA champions.

Or the BCS/NCAA champ is the favorite over the Super Bowl champs

I know that we’re all in the shitter because of upholstered jackals like Goldman Sachs. But I’m in serious trouble this month and could use a spot of help.

without regulation there really is nothing wrong in my opinion with what the firm did

they had clients that wanted to short a market everyone knew was about to crash, I knew the market was about to crash, I be against the market in my own way and did nicely I might add, I even gave advise on this very board to bet against the market, though not with short selling but that’s another story

I had friends who were in morgages and they could not/would not believe the market was going to crash, they bet long

this firm had clients that did not believe the market was about to crash and they had clients that thought the market would, they created instruments for both sides and then bet the way they wanted to bet as well, making money no matter which way the market fell

if they told the people who wanted to bet long that the “market would crash, don’t do that” they would be accusd of causing the problem, and they would have caused an earlier crisis by the way if they did that

the real problem is this;

because of the lack of regulation, what goldman sacks did was legal and THAT is the problem

they are in a game where they choose the rules, then they make the best of those rules

so there we go, the solution is to prohibit the kind of behavior where a company promotes long and also creates short as an inside bet

without regulation preventing that scenario it will happen again and it SHOULD happen again, this is why we need those regulations

we also need government providing the oversite and the ratings for these kinds of securities

Blankfein testified at the end that he DIDN’T KNOW that the fraudulent AAA ratings from the rating agencies were the magic key to getting at the retirement money of thee little people, i.e., that pension fund investors and others with fiduciary obligations are prohibited from buying anything less than AAA rated securities.

Nobody in the print or business media has even mentioned it that I have seen.

Violent thoughts fill my mind.

Mornin’, BT, pups

I can’t believe I watched/listened to almost every minute of the hearing yesterday.

Blankfein and his counterparts in the industry will continue to create and sell shitty products while Congress figures out a way to allow them to continue without regulation.

They are all Madoff now.

I don’t know, it reminds me of the Bernanke hearings where he walked away smellin’ like a rose

Exactly right, perris. They took advantage of the rules of the game as they were. They used their influence to get the rules changed to their favor, then played by the rules they wrote. The problem, is that the players were allowed to write the rules.

Goldman wears too manny hats, that’s what gives them room to play these games.

One head, one hat.

I cannot get over the expression of, “We have the right, we do no wrong,” on Blankfein’s face.

Just pure arrogance that setting people up to fail to have their $$$ to bet on is a fair game. He sees no wrong in gaming the system.

Give those co-conspirators at Goldman some credit, they are the smartest people in the world. But money is simple. You have to conceal, confuse and conspire to keep it all secret. You use three degrees of separation. You pay off the other co-conspirators who do the accounting and rating. So fraud is fraud and they are fraudsters.

Many Goldman Sachs co-conspirators are in government positions. They all should immediately be removed along with their enablers. We can start with Stephen Friedman, Timmy Geithner, Bernanke, Rubin, etc.

New post up top…

Off to swim in the great capitalist cesspool.

US KIA Irak: 4,394

US KIA Afghanistan: 1,050

Iraki and Afghan casualties: estimates vary to over 1.5M

US MBS 2010: 14,508 and counting

Be good to yourselves, and all other living things.

Namaste

Give those co-conspirators at Goldman some credit, they are the smartest people in the world.

Certainly they would tell you so. Along with greed, massive egotism is a defining characteristic of the Merchant class. Once they strike it rich, they think they’re gods!

Totally agree.

It’s nice to watch but then watching Barbara Boxer rip into the oil execs way back when was nice to watch, too. It’s just zingers at a hearing, it’s not indictments or legislation.

This is garbage and a waste of time unless the regulation is actually put in place. I’m with Cenk, stop yelling at these people and just SEVERELY regulate them! What.the.fuck. are we waiting for?! Anything else is just theatrics and I’m quite frankly bored with all of this. Meh.

I agree with perris.
We have to get rid of the legislators who allow the financial industry to pillage. All of our country’s problems can be put squarely on the shoulders of the politicians. They make–or don’t make–the rules.
If any candidate has a “D” or “R” after his/her name, I won’t vote for that candidate.
I don’t care how trustworthy the candidate appears to be–look at Kucinich. It might take a few election cycles, but we can begin the process of weeding out all the politicians who are there now, or at the very least, scare and shame some of those who have not completely lost their moral grounding. If they will refuse to accept contributions from the “savvy businessmen,” it would be a start. I’m so sick of watching these guys bend over for corporate criminals and then continue to play the game of “Follow the Leader” with Obama.

Certainly they would tell you so. Along with greed, massive egotism is a defining characteristic of the Merchant of Venice class. Once they strike it rich, they think they’re gods!

Fixed it.

There’s a reason for what you call theatrics. You’ll notice that GS people clung to “market maker” and avoided the words “bet” or “betting”. The senators questioned as they did to eke out a couple of things: 1) whether GS really acted as a bookie and bettor in a casino game, and 2) whether GS’ statements will reveal additional opportunities for both a referral to DOJ and improved regulatory legislation.

It’s pretty clear to me that some of yesterday’s subjects walked a fine line and may have made misstatements in front of the Senate, and may have admitted to making material misstatements (in the form of omissions) to shareholders.

As for your pique about the theatrics: the real target of your anger should be the folks who are obstructing regulatory reform. Sic ‘em.

I think that’s an opportunity right there: Levin should request all emails within GS which discuss ratings agencies, beginning with any sent to/by Blankfein.

Heh. He pointedly lied. It’d be nice to shove it in his face on camera and watch that faux innocent outrage wiped off his face.

Yes, either an obvious lie, or a clear declaration of personal incompetence. Considering how much pension investment money got passed thru GS, I have to go with the former.

But I’m appalled that NOBODY in the media has even mentioned it.

Gotta believe the fix is already in. Again.

Well, I don’t know about a fix, per se, but I think many of the same problems with the media in 2007-2008 still exist today.

Read this postmortem by Dean Starkman and you see what I mean.

I didn’t bother to watch the video. Thanks anyway, but to me it’s just more bs ladled out by our legislators. Yeah, some days one or the other of them says something that “sounds good,” but that’s about all it is – good “sounding.” Wake me when they actually get around to regulating these crooks. Then perhaps I’ll watch that. I won’t hold my breath. The legislators are all in on the fix and the vigs and all the rest of it.

It’s long been obvious to me that Wall St is one big casino, and so I proceed with caution. In the main, I’ve done pretty well overall. I guess it’s why I’m not interested in betting in “real” casinos… because I do it every day on Wall St.

My issue is that a lot of citizens, including my innocent father who taught me most of what I know about investing, don’t “get” that fact. That they are betting in the biggest casino of them all, and that these greedy bastards could give a stuff about the little folks… in fact, we exist merely to be ripped off, if possible. If someone, like me or my dad, make out ok: oh well, so be it. We’re not making that much to make a difference to the unfettered greed heads; so be it.

But if we can be ripped off: YAY!! Boooo-yah!!! Whooopeee!

That’s what most citizens don’t get. And let’s not forget that – like the idea that EVERYONE must buy a house – citizens have been pushed and encouraged to invest in Wall St. Many people really don’t know what they’re getting into when they do that. They told all about so-called “safe” investments and junk like that. But, much like our soldiers being sent into battles manufactured solely to enrich the one percenters, many investors are being sent out with their hard-earned cash to enrich the one percenters.

This is what most citizens don’t get. In going through my dad’s papers recently, I saw just heart-breakinly naive he was, and how he actually *believed* that the government was “looking after” his better interests. Yet, yes, he voted Republic time and time again and was vitriolically opposed to “regulations” and “taxes.” Yes: talk about voting against your own self-interest.

Oh well. ’nuff said. That’s my big rant, though, is that citizens are being dramatically mis-led about Wall St and how it operates. And even after the giant crash, we are once again listening to the siren song of investing in Wall St.

Yeah,I know, tracking the media is one of my special interests.

By “fix,” I really meant the form of the reform legislation is probably already set, and everyone knos it, so why dwell on facts embarrassing to GS or Wall Street generally.

On that note, CNBC seems to have just announced a deal on the reform bill that will exclude dealing with the consumer protection and derivatives issues.

Pitchforks are the only way to fix this corrupt system.

You’re SO right. Keep interest rates near zero, while inflation runs 5% or more, and people are nanturally forced into the stock market even if they don’t want to take risk and don’t understand the magnitude of the risk.

Been going on since 1990. Yielded two bubbles and two bubble bursts so far, both phenomena very profitable for the smart money, so why not keep the game going?

Let the peasants eat each other. It’s an improvement over cake. /s

I may be mistaken about that deal-not seeing anything further.

Yes Claire made some brownie points grilling the GS pond scum, but it seems the dam is beginning to break. Neil Barofsky says something smells with the deal to bail out AIG ( http://www.huffingtonpost.com ) and in turn GS to the tune of 2,5 billion. This issue came up yesterday at the end of the hearing when Levin was asking why and from whom did GS get payed its 2.5 billion?

It should come as no surprise as to why the Obama administration stated last week that they were against releasing the e-mails dealing with the AIG bailout. Elliot Spitzer brought up the same issue last week on Dylan Ratigan’s show. How much more embarrassing could it be in Obama having picked Geithner to be Treasury chief only to find out during the conformation process that the guy just happened to forget to pay his income taxes and now is probably knee deep in the decision making process to bail out AIG using tax payer funds rather than GS getting its 2.5 B from their private insurance company. Just wondering out loud here, but could that insurance company happen to have been owned by GS’S largest equity holder Warren Buffett?.

This issue also came up yesterday when Blankfein testified. GS had private insurance to cover the 2.5 billion that GS was owed by AIG, but “SOMEONE” at Treasury decided the US tax payer should pick up the tab instead. This entire matter smells of cover up and I still maintain that if your going to use US tax payer dollars for bailouts, then the tax payer deserves to know where his money is going and why.