Dodona v. Goldman Sachs

At the site called STOPForeclosureFraud.com by DinSFLA, you will find the legal documents for a class action suit against Goldman Sachs and others who created the Hudson I and Hudson II CDOs. The action against Goldman Sachs uses information obtained from the SEC, the FCIC, the Senate Subcommittee on Investigations and internal documents from Goldman itself. It is worth reading and, besides being easy to read, lays bare just what Goldman Sachs did to become insanely rich from shorting bets on CDOs sold to clients, clients who lost just as big.

An e-mail sent to Blankfein on September 26, 2007, from Peter Kraus regarding the massive profits that Goldman Sachs made in 2007 as opposed to the losses their clients enjoyed, is worth quoting from the legal documents mentioned above:

"I met with 10+ individual prospects and clients (and 5 were institutional clients) since earnings were announced. The institutions don't and I wouldn't expect them to, make any comments like ur [sic] good at making money for urself [sic] but not us. The individuals do sometimes, but while it requires the utmost humility from us in response, I feel very strongly it binds clients even closer to the firm, because the alternative of take ur [sic] money to a firm who is under performer and not the best, just isn't reasonable. Clients ultimately believe association with the best is good for them in the long run."
(p. 32-33, Class Action Complaint for Violation of the Federal Securities Laws and New York Common Law)

Well, that is hardly what I would call "humility." Words that come to mind are: arrogance, self-righteousness, self-serving. But the legal documents use words that are just as descriptive, such as "fraudulent," "deceitful," "manipulative," "deceptive," "scheme and artifice," "misleading statements," "failure to disclose," "illegal conduct and practices," "reckless disregard of truth," "concealing truth," etc.

You can read the entire legal document here