Goldman Sachs's Gensler and MF Global Bankruptcy

We have been following Gary Gensler's progress as Chairman of the CFTC where he has been tasked with helping to create the rules for regulating bank derivatives. Because of Gensler's former ties with Goldman Sachs, it seems as though Gensler has a conflict of interest in dealing with the bankruptcy of MF Global which was run by another Goldman Sachs guy, Jon Corzine. Even though Gensler has said he would recuse himself from direct participaction with MF Global, there is still the appearance of conflict and reason to be wary.

Jesse's Cafe American blog offers some difficulties that the CFTC faces in resolving other conflicts and cites MFGFacts.

The MF Global Bankruptcy Filing: Did the Regulators Sell Out the Public for JP Morgan?
By Jesse - Jesse's Cafe Americain

What seems fairly obvious is that the law calls for MF Global to file a Chapter 7 bankruptcy in which customers are given seniority to creditors, rather than a Chapter 11 non-broker bankruptcy in which the customer interests are not upheld. The rationale for Chapter 11 has always seems to be contrived to favor a particular creditor bank.

Prior CFTC rulings and 'Rule 190' seems to have dealt with this in the past. Statements by various CFTC commissioners of late also seem to suggest that customers absolutely have a senior claim to any assets.

Why then did the SEC, with Gary Gensler's purported assent, seem to ignore the precedent and their own rules and cut a deal in a secret meeting to favor the Banks, specifically JP Morgan?

The personal involvement of Gary Gensler seems a little ambiguous based on the facts at hand, but it is obvious that the bankruptcy filing is being mishandled, and the SEC and CFTC are doing too little to represent the interests of the customers.

Obviously this should be more explicitly addressed and the customers need to be relieved of this travesty of justice.

President Obama may speak brave words in his speeches, but the actions of his Administration show that there is little teeth in their supposed championing of the public interest over the powerful interests of Wall Street. Actions speak louder than words.

MFGFacts
CFTC Warnings When Bankruptcy Codes Conflict: And a Still Secret Meeting

Last week we witnessed lawyers dueling in the bankruptcy court on the details of exactly what code of law supports customer priority in liquidation of the parts of MF Global Holdings, and gosh!….is the Holdings is even a broker ? Why are lawyers debating these questions at this late date?

First we’ll cover what started the fight and then move onto the genesis of why it has come to this so far into the proceedings. Do stick with the story as it might sound like legal minutiae, but does have everything to do with recovery of customer funds.

It started with the Sapere Wealth Management, LLC assertions (among others) that the MF Global estate must be administered under 17 C.F.R paragraph 190. Remember paragraph 190 as you will hear more about this in the next weeks. Applying this clause of the bankruptcy code to the liquidation of MF Global Holdings would assure customer priority in the liquidation of MFGH, which is also claimed to have taken customer assets out of MFGI, the commodity brokerage unit of the Holdings company, MFGH — before and after the bankruptcy.

That all customer property as defined in paragraph 190 of the code, must be returned to commodity customers free and clear of other claims is also supported by others parties, including the CFTC. The CFTC, however, also asserts that existing principles of law are available to ensure this, but first the court needs to make “antecedent determinations.” In other words, the CFTC legal team is playing the adult and indicating that we already have the laws on the books to deal with this once the court figures out what laws it wants to use.

So why is the question if MFGH is even a broker so important? Again, the key paragraph 190, which legally secures customer priority and distributions can only be applied to a brokerage Chapter 7 bankruptcy, which is used for brokerage bankruptcies, but was not used for MFGH, which is the holding company of MFGI. MFGH was filed as a Chapter 11 bankruptcy. This Bankruptcy Code is used for non-broker entities, seeking re-organization.

Also, and to use the words of the Sapere plea to the court, “A decision by the court that 17 C.F.R §190 applied to MFGH’s estate can, among other things, obviate the need for titan law firms representing MFGH and MFGI, respectively, to engage in battles with one another funded by “other people’s money,” i.e., at substantial costs to the estates of MFGH and MFGI.”

The ability to use many millions of customer funds locked in the estate to pay trustees and their “titan” law firms representing MFGH and MFGI is possible because the bankruptcy was filed as a Chapter 11 for the Holdings and Chapter 11 SIPC filing for MFGI, the commodity brokerage, and not under Chapter 7 for both.

As regular readers know, from the start of this sorry saga, MFGFacts.com has focused on the questions around why a Chapter 11 SIPC bankruptcy with almost non-existent securities accounts when neither SIPC nor Chapter 11 address brokerage liquidations. Additionally, Chapter 11 is the choice when a restructuring is planed, which is not so with MFGH.

Read the rest of the article here

Goldman Sachs Supports Romney Coming and Going

Normally, Mitt Romney's relationships with banks would not need much inquiry but Romney is running for the Republican presidential nomination in the hopes of becoming President of the U.S. and that changes everything.

In the last election, members of Goldman Sachs supported Obama's campaign with $1,013,091. In the 2012 election, Goldman Sachs employees have so far supported Romney's campaign to the tune of $350,000. Then there are the investments managed by Goldman Sachs which provide wealth for Romney.

Romney's business relationships with Goldman Sachs, his obtaining campaign money from Goldman Sachs and his wealth accumulation via Goldman Sachs make a triumvirate of relationhips chalk full of blatant conflicts of interest if Romney were elected president of the U.S.

The questions arise: knowing what we do about the influences of Goldman Sachs on public policy, would Romney make a good President? Does Romney have any idea what it is like to live without millions of dollars at his disposal?

Goldman Sachs a key player in managing Romney's wealth
Romney's tax returns show portions of his family fortune in an elite division of Goldman open only to clients with more than $10 million to invest and another in bank-run hedge funds.
By Nathaniel Popper - Los Angeles Times

Much of Mitt Romney's millions has come from his relationship with the biggest name on Wall Street: Goldman Sachs.

In the personal tax returns released by Romney's presidential campaign Monday, Goldman is revealed as one of the central players involved in managing his family's massive wealth.

A significant proportion of the Romney family fortune is parked with an elite division of Goldman that is open only to clients with more than $10 million to invest. Another chunk of the fortune is invested in Goldman-run hedge funds, which like all hedge funds are open only to millionaires.

One of the most profitable single investments visible in Romney's recent tax returns came from the sale of shares in Goldman itself. He was among a select group of investors allowed to buy Goldman shares on the day the bank went public in 1999. By the time 7,000 of the shares were sold by Romney's estate in 2010, they netted a $759,000 profit.

"You have to be a favored person to get that kind of thing," said Charles Geisst, a former banker and professor of finance at Manhattan College.

Goldman has a long history of quietly catering to America's elite. Since the financial crisis, though, the firm has come under public scrutiny for its massive profits and close ties to the country's political leadership.

Romney's fortune is now handled through a blind trust managed by a Boston attorney, who is responsible for choosing the specific investments. But Romney's ties to Goldman began before these trusts were set up and underscore his membership in the country's most exclusive financial circles, a categorization he has been eager to distance himself from.

Goldman and the Romney campaign would not comment on the relationship.

The link between Goldman and Romney is likely to come under continuing scrutiny as the presidential campaign moves forward because of big donations that Goldman employees have made to Romney.

While Goldman employees were among the most generous donors to Barack Obama in 2008, during this election cycle they have swung to Romney, serving as his single biggest source of donations, according to data analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics.

Romney's stated desire to repeal the 2010 financial reform legislation has been popular with executives at many financial firms, where the reform legislation is viewed as a threat to future profits.

Financial world insiders say that Romney would have had frequent contact with Goldman when he was president of the private equity firm Bain Capital, which bought companies and then took them public. Goldman helped bring some of Bain's companies public when Romney was at the firm and earned fees for doing so.

Romney was given access to the Goldman public offering during his final year at Bain, 1999. On the day of the offering, Goldman broke with precedent by offering almost all of the newly available shares to its own customers, according to reports at the time.

Goldman has not done this work free of charge. The Romney family trust paid Goldman $168,000 in management fees in 2010. The fees paid by Romney's own trust, and that of his wife, are not detailed.

Many of the investments that Goldman has made on behalf of Romney and his wife were in foreign companies, including the National Bank of Greece, Nokia and the French luxury retailer LVMH.

Read the article here

Goldman Sachs and Crony Capitalism

Bill Moyers interviews David Stockman and reminds us of all the bankers who found themselves in positions of power in Washington and who consequently made policy that was not in the interests of the American people. This whole blog concerns how Goldman Sachs played a major role in corrupting the financial system with its speculating and its insinuating of its members into political positions that enabled the banks to prosper at the expense of the middle and working class.

The title of Moyers' series says it all:

Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer and Turned its Back on the Middle Class

David Stockman on Crony Capitalism
Interview with Bill Moyers

David Stockman on Crony Capitalism from BillMoyers.com on Vimeo.

You can see the video and the full transcript of the interview here

Those Reckless Bankers, Goldman Sachs!

It is such a pleasure to see that Bill Moyers is back after his brief retirement. He is a voice of reason in a world of financial insanity and brings a calm and resolute eye to the problems facing the American economy.

Below, he interviews Gretchen Morgenson on what she found out while investigating the financial crisis of 2008 and what we have to look forward to as a result.

Gretchen Morgenson on Corporate Clout in Washington
Interview of Gretchen Morgenson by Bill Moyers

Gretchen Morgenson on Industry Influence from BillMoyers.com on Vimeo.

You can see the video and read the full transcript here

Goldman Sachs Bonuses Could Be Put To Better Use

We know that bonuses overall for Goldman Sachs went down 21% this year, but what we did not take into account was the higher base salary that Blankfein received: his $600,000 base salary rose to $2 million in 2011.

Now we find out that the top six banks in the US, including Goldman Sachs, paid out bonuses and compensation for 2011 that competed with those paid in 2007 to the tune of $144 billion, according to a report by The New Bottom Line.

Adding insult to injury, there may be a settlement reached with the states' AGs and the Wall Street banks "including loan modifications and principal reduction" for a measly $20-25 billions from the banks. That makes two sucker punches at the same time!

The report says:

"If the six banks took half of their bonus and compensation pool and put it directly into a public service jobs fund, they could create 1.8 million jobs and still have enough money left over to pay the average employee $60,605."

But we are well aware that Goldman Sachs is not about community service or serving the public needs; they are about money exchanges, fees and hedge fund bets.

Wall Street Bank Bonuses and Compensation Near 2007 'Good Times' levels, Report Finds
Posted by ENews Park Forest from The New Bottom Line
Report details how big bank bonuses could be used to rebuild the economy and profiles web of connections of bank board members who benefit from keeping bonuses high

New York, New York—(ENEWSPF)—January 23, 2012. The nation’s top six banks -- Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs -- paid out $144 billion in bonuses and compensation for 2011, second only to the record $147 billion they paid out in 2007 at the height of the economic boom, according to a report released today by The New Bottom Line. Four banks – Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and Morgan Stanley – were awarded record high bonuses and compensation in 2011, despite their bleak stock performance during the year.

“Even though top bank executives have claimed that bonuses are down as much as 30 percent for 2011, total compensation has not decreased at all,” according to The New Bottom Line’s report, “Pulling Back The Curtain: The 1% Behind The 2011 Big Bank Bonuses.”

Many banks made up for smaller bonuses by increasing base salaries. For example, base salaries for named executive officers at Goldman Sachs more than tripled in 2011. At JPMorgan Chase, named executive officers saw salaries go up 50 percent.

These near-record bonuses come amidst the news that a settlement is near between Wall Street banks and a group of states Attorneys General, including a predicted $20-25 billion in loan modifications and principal reduction. While the big banks continue to profit off the loss of the 99%, this potential sweetheart deal could let the banks off the hook for their crimes and only pay a small drop in the bucket.

“Big banks can crash the economy, take billions of dollars in tax-payer funded bailouts, award themselves more than $140 billion in bonuses and compensation, but can’t afford the necessary principal reduction that would help millions of homeowner?” said Tracy Van Slyke, co-director of The New Bottom Line. “The settlement in its current form is a settlement for the one percent. President Obama must stand with the 99 percent and take the bold and necessary action to hold Wall Street and the big banks accountable. “

The New Bottom Line, which works with foreclosed families and underwater homeowners around the country, has called on President Obama to order a full investigation into the fraudulent and illegal activities of the big banks during the mortgage crisis. The New Bottom Line also maintains that a minimum of $300 billion in principal reduction for homeowners
Instead of going to bonuses and compensation, the report details how this money could used to rebuild the economy decimated by the Wall Street banks during the mortgage crisis. Specifically:

Just half of the banks’ bonus and compensation pools would be enough to write down the principals on all underwater mortgages in the country.

If the six banks took half of their bonus and compensation pool and put it directly into a public service jobs fund, they could create 1.8 million jobs, and still have enough money left over to pay the average employee $60,605.

Just 72% of the $144 billion in bonuses and compensation at the top six banks would have been enough money to plug the $102.9 billion in budget holes for all 50 states for the current fiscal year.

The report gives examples of how the money could be spent in California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, and Ohio. For example, just four days of bonuses and compensation at the top six banks would be enough to restore $2.2 billion for local schools in Minnesota.

Read the rest of the article here

A summary of the report can be found here

Goldman Sachs's Corzine, MF Global and JP Morgan

Naked Capitalism examines the relationship between MF Global and JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs. Why anyone would trust these banks is a moot question. They certainly don't seem to trust each other.

More Evidence that JP Morgan Stuck the Knife in MF Global
By Yves Smith - Naked Capitalism

The death of MF Global and JP Morgan’s role in its demise is starting to look like a beauty contest between Cinderalla’s ugly sisters. As much as most market savvy observers are convinced that there is no explanation for how MF Global made $1.2 billion in customer funds go poof that could exculpate the firm, JP Morgan’s conduct isn’t looking too pretty either.

Reader Michael C sent a link to a Reuters investigative piece on the MF Global collapse, and it’s a doozy. While in proper journalistic form it is careful about reaching firm conclusions on a post mortem that is still underway, the pattern it has uncovered is not surprising to those of us who are onto JP Morgan. As many, including this blogger, have pointed out, it was JP Morgan that did in the doomed Lehman by withhold $7 billion of cash and collateral. And we’ve written how it used one of its best private clients, billionaire investor and industrialist Len Blavatnik, as a stuffee for toxic subprime debt in summer 2007, when every financial firm was desperate to offload US housing dreck.

The short form of the Reuters story is that JP Morgan, by virtue of being both a lender to MF Global as well as clearing its trades, has a big information advantage and could see how distressed the firm was. MF Global drew down the full amount of a newly-syndicated $1.3 billion credit facility, a huge warning sign.

The Reuters story makes clear that JP Morgan went into “possession is 9/10ths of the law” mode, calling for full compliance with transaction procedures when normal business practice was to be more forgiving. The New York bank offers up the excuse that it lost money to MF Global, but that is not the issue. Any creditor to a bankrupt company will lose money. The issue is whether JP Morgan did anything irregular or impermissible to cut its losses, which in this case appears to have come in no small measure out of the hides of customers.

The story is worth reading in full, but this incident gives a picture of the sort of behavior JP Morgan was engaged in:

MF Global also decided to sell $1.3 billion of IOUs known as commercial paper. The short-term debt was part of some $7 billion of securities the firm sold that week. But this sale was critical, people familiar with the situation said, because MF Global had used customer funds to invest in the short-term debt and now badly needed to liquidate the IOUs and move cash into the customer accounts to meet their demands. The investments in the IOUs were allowed by industry regulations, these people said.

For help, Corzine turned to his old employer, Goldman Sachs, which specializes in trading the short-term paper. Corzine phoned Goldman President Gary Cohn to ask him to buy the IOUs, offering a slight discount, according to people familiar with the situation.

Read the rest of the article here

Goldman Sachs, Occupy the SEC and the Volcker Rule

The Occupy Movement is undergoing a metamorphosis from protesting in the streets and camping in parks to discussing and supporting laws that will help remedy the weaknesses of the financial system. Naked Capitalism's Yves Smith discusses a letter sent by Occupy the SEC to the House Financial Services Committee regarding the Volcker Rule.

Goldman Sachs has supposedly divested itself of proprietary trading but it has lobbied mightily against the Volcker Rule. Lauren Tara LaCapra of Reuters in an article called Goldman lobbying hard to weaken Volcker rule wrote:

(Reuters) - Goldman Sachs Group Inc has just a few more months to put its stamp on the Volcker rule, and it is not wasting any time.

The rule, designed to limit banks from speculating with their own money, will cost Goldman at least $3.7 billion in annual revenue, by one estimate. And billions more could be at stake if regulations now being drawn up are extra-tough.

The Volcker rule was one of the main topics on the agenda when Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein met recently with U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary Schapiro.

Wall Street chiefs do not often lobby top regulators directly, but this issue is unusually important to Goldman.

"They're totally freaked out about Volcker," said a Goldman lobbyist who declined to speak on the record for fear of losing the contract. "People are working on that a lot, with agency staff, with lawmakers, you name it."

Indeed, lobbying disclosures show Goldman representatives have been working both sides of the political aisle and meeting with top officials in the White House and regulatory agencies.

One big area of concern for Goldman is that regulators who are interpreting the Volcker rule will severely limit the amount of time a bank can hold a security or derivative. Positions held long term can be backstairs bets on markets.

The Volcker rule is not the only element of financial reform that Goldman is resisting. Important issues on its lobbying docket also include derivatives reform, capital requirements and bonus restrictions.

Other bank heads, including Morgan Stanley's James Gorman, have met Schapiro about the Volcker rule. But the provision is most important for Goldman, whose business is far more weighted toward trading, three lobbying sources said.

Read the rest of the article here

As Yves says about the Occupy the SEC letter:

The letter is well documented and well argued. It goes directly after the financial services industry claim that implementation of a ban on proprietary trading will cause damage by hurting vaunted and mystical “liquidity.” An illustrative extract:

Moreover, much of the so-called “liquidity” that the banks have engineered, especially in opaque OTC markets, can be most appropriately termed “artificial liquidity.” As one commentator notes, the “very belief that the proliferation of financial derivatives and securitization techniques has enhanced global liquidity has been [the] core illusion driving the sub-prime bubble in the USA

The letter and the article can be found here

The "SuperMegaGigantoNormous Fraud"* that Goldman Sachs Participated In

*Abigail Caplovitz Field in her Reality Check blog ruminates about the American justice system and its inaction toward investigating and prosecuting banks and mortgage servicing companies that caused the financial meltdown of 2008. Goldman Sachs, under Blankfein's leadership, was one of those banks that paid a token fine for civil fraud, without admitting their fraud, when they should have faced criminal prosecution for fraud.

The author makes good points regarding the lack of justice shown by the Justice Department and the President. We begin to get the feel for what went wrong and why the financial system has become bigger and more risky since the crisis began. She judges the justice system's weaknesses with fairness and candor. Her essay does not make us feel any less cheated but it shines new light in dark corners.

Our Morally Bankrupt Government, Justice Edition Part I: Enforcement Against Financial Meltdown Perpetrators
By Abigail Caplovitz Field - Reality Check

Perhaps the clearest window into a nation’s soul is its criminal justice system. Criminal law is legislated morality: certain acts are so vile, we exile the perpetrators to prison. But not every criminal. America will never have enough resources to catch and prosecute all criminals. As a result many guilty go free without ever being pursued, simply because the government decided spend its limited resources elsewhere. Looking at whom the government prosecutes, therefore, is an easy way to see law enforcers’ priorities in action.

Sadly, when it comes to the Financial Meltdown perpetrators, scrutiny reveals those priorities are deeply distorted. Our law enforcers chose to become the protection detail of our wealthy-beyond-dreaming-crooks-in-chief, while throwing the book at their guilty but less destructive subordinates.

Who should we be prosecuting? Well, there’s Dick Fuld of Lehman; James Cayne of Bear, Stearns; Joseph Cassano of AIGFP; Angelo Mozillo of Countrywide; and E. Stanley O’Neal of Merrill Lynch, just to name a few. There’s also all the bailed out top bankers still in power, such as Lloyd Blankfein, Jamie Dimon, and the meltdown era executives at the other biggest bailout recipients: Citigroup, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley. And that’s not an exhaustive list.

As I lay out below, AG Holder and President Obama have abandoned the cherished American principle–the core democratic principle–of equality before the law. That’s a kind of moral corruption that strikes at the heart of our national identity. And as best I can tell–again, the evidence follows–this corruption flows from Treasury Department/Wall Street fear mongering and revolving door conflicts of interest.

Worst of all, our top law enforcers abandoned equality before the law precisely when our democracy desperately needs it. Our only defense against the growing tyranny of the 1%, the only means we have of policing the bounds of their power, is the vigorous and equal enforcement of the law.

The Buck Stops with Holder and Obama

A couple of housekeeping notes first: Many at Justice and in the FBI are ethical and moral people who try very hard to do right by the American people. So even though I use the word “Justice” as in Justice Department throughout, my critique does not apply to the people below the very top. Fundamentally only Attorney General Eric Holder and President Obama are responsible our Department of Justice’s enforcement priorities.

Attorney General Holder runs the show, but President Obama gave him the job, and can fire him at any time. Holder’s enforcement priorities and strategies therefore must reflect Obama’s priorities. I realize that’s a very formal take, but it’s the only defensible one. I don’t care how much who knew about what, how decisions are or were in fact made, or any other framing or excusing of AG Holder & President Obama’s responsibility for our criminal justice priorities. In our democracy the only political control We, the People have on our national criminal enforcement priorities is our vote for President. And an incumbent President’s strongest advertisement of his enforcement priorities is his Attorney General and his record. The buck stops with them, period.

Judging Justice

Another important caveat about this critique: I’m only looking at all things Financial Meltdown. In this part one, I’m looking at the prosecution of perpetrators, bankers and the companies they run. In part two I look at Justice’s defense of our legal system, of the rule of law itself. While Justice is responsible for many other topics–combating terrorism, for example–the Financial Meltdown devastated our economy, deranged our democracy and destroyed trillions of dollars of ordinary Americans’ wealth. So though I’m only grading one subject, it’s not a gotcha quiz. Nor does it say anything about Justice’s performance in those other areas.

Please read the rest of this fine essay here

Bonus Time Again At Goldman Sachs

Profit is down more than 58% and revenue dropped 30% at Goldman Sachs. Goldman stock fell 46% in 2011. Goldman's compensation and benefits declined 21% for a total compensation of $12.2 billion in 2011 for an average of $367,000 per person. To keep its compensation up, Goldman cut 2,400 jobs and used more than 42% of its net revenue for compensation.

As Cohan points out in the Yahoo Finance video, using 42% of revenue for compensation is outrageous. The amount of compensation itself is remarkably flagrant and conspicuously offensive.

When a bank's profits decline by 58%, executive compensation should reflect that fact and also should decline by the same percentage. Bonuses should really count for something other than a means of retention. Bonuses at Goldman serve to promote risk taking when they do not reflect an extraordinary work ethic.

Goldman Sachs--same old, same old!

It's Goldman Bonus Day
By Kevin Roose and Susanne Craig - DealBook

Groans and grimaces inside a 200 West Street skyscraper can mean only one thing – yes, it’s Goldman Sachs bonus day.

Thursday is “Compensation Communication Day,” the name Goldman gives to the day when its employees learn how big – or how small – their annual bonuses will be.

Many Goldman employees are dreading this year’s big reveal, and for good reason. The firm announced on Wednesday that its revenue in 2011 was down significantly, likely bringing bonuses down with it.

It was a bad year overall for Wall Street banks, with the largest bulge-bracket firms taking big hits to their bottom lines and cutting costs wherever possible. Goldman has not taken the drastic step of capping cash bonuses at $125,000, as Morgan Stanley has told its employees it intends to do this year. But many of the firm’s employees are privately keeping their hopes low.

One Goldman employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to talk to the media, said he was telling himself to expect no bonus at all, so that anything above zero would come as a pleasant surprise.

Once the news is broken, employees return to their desks, where some celebrate, others sulk and still others trade gossip via the firm’s internal instant-messaging system. On Thursday morning, fearful word spread around Goldman’s New York office about colleagues in Europe who had already received their bonuses, reportedly at levels much lower than last year’s, according to one person with knowledge of the conversations.

Even the largest bonuses at Goldman this year are likely to be a far cry from those given out during Wall Street’s prelapsarian years. As Charles D. Ellis recounts in “The Partnership: The Making of Goldman Sachs,” his book on the firm, employees at the firm were once paid their yearly bonuses in stacks of $100,000 checks. ($100,000 being the biggest single-check amount the firm’s payroll system could process.)

In 2006, the last full pre-crisis year, Lloyd C. Blankfein, the firm’s chief executive, took home a $68 million bonus.

Read the rest of the article here

Reprise on Goldman Sachs

Now that Goldman Sachs is reporting lower revenue and bonuses, it's time to go back to their nefarious days of CDOs and CDSs, in case we forget.

First, the video of Senator Levin questioning Goldman about rotten deals from YouTube:



You can see the video here

Second, the Naked Capitalism writeup about Goldman's defense by apologists and Matt Taibbi's take on them which you can read here.