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Fraud*
According to the Collins English Dictionary 10th Edition fraud can be defined as: "deceit, trickery, sharp practice, or breach of confidence, perpetrated for profit or to gain some unfair or dishonest advantage".[1] In the broadest sense, a fraud is an intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual; the related adjective is fraudulent. The specific legal definition varies by legal jurisdiction. Fraud is a crime, and also a civil law violation. Defrauding people or entities of money or valuables is a common purpose of fraud, but there have also been fraudulent "discoveries", e.g. in science, to gain prestige rather than immediate monetary gain
*As defined in Wikipedia

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Goldman Sachs and the Media as Cheerleader

At various times Goldman Sachs has been accused of insider trading, market manipulation, civil fraud, creating junk derivatives from sub-prime mortgages, unfair HFT trading, and so on. When a news network views the banks in nothing but positive terms, then their motives must be questioned.

A Clue: Jim Cramer used to work for Goldman Sachs.

John Carney of CNBC Is On Personal Crusade to Legalize Insider Trading
by bgamall - HubPages

I have an opinion about CNBC. I believe this network comes to the aid of Goldman Sachs, other major Wall Street firms, and the insider trading syndicate. I believe that this company has an interest in luring retail investors into the investment trap that is the stock market. This is purely my opinion, but there are some tell tale signs that my opinion may be true. No one is accusing CNBC of taking money from Goldman Sachs. No one is accusing Jim Cramer, or CNBC editor John Carney (formerly of Clusterstock), or Erin Burnett of taking money from the TBTF banksters or anyone else directly.

But clearly pumping stocks while Wall Street firms are accused of churning the price of stocks through manipulation and/or insider trading is a lucrative business. At the very least, as a network, you get the attention of day traders and a wider audience. I doubt if CNBC would say they are not a "team player" for Wall Street. I could be wrong.

If I am wrong, certainly CNBC can come and debate this in the comment section. I will try to assemble a circumstantial case against the business network. But certainly this is only for the court of public opinion rather than a court of law, where, IMO, many of their minions should be right now. But unless the SEC decides to go after this network and prove laws are being broken, there is not much that we can hope for on that front. Unless actual laws are broken, this relationship between CNBC and Wall Street can continue indefinitely.

Here are signs that I could be right about the relationship:

1. The network, especially Larry Kudlow and Erin Burnett, uses metaprogramming language to help lure investors at the retail level. Some of these metaprogramming words include, "glass half full", "money on the sidelines", "green shoots", "goldilocks economy", "free market capitalism", etc. I am not saying that CNBC has thought up all these catch phrases because I don't know. However, this becomes an ongoing editorial and brainwashing that is not evident to many people. Used to be that we knew when a company was editorializing and when they were reporting the news. CNBC mixes them in, sort of like Fox News (talking points), but focused on financial news and opinion. Why would a company that claims to be a news organization use language that plants deliberate suggestion into the brains of the unsuspecting viewers?

2. The network rails against those who criticize their pet banksters with cries of Class Warfare. However, I have proven that the class warfare has come from the top down. So, their cries are like the boy who cried wolf. Only with CNBC the boy is the best pal of wolves.

3. The network rails against those who can't pay their mortgages. Santelli's rant was no doubt sanctioned, and since he is not given the Cramer disclaimer, apparently he speaks for CNBC. Or else, why didn't the editors of CNBC come on and sanction Santelli? Why didn't they tell the world that the banksters were at fault for the ponzi lending scheme instead of the borrowers? Santelli said that the borrowers made a "bet" and lost. But since when do bankers with any reputation whatsoever make bets with their customers and borrowers? Why didn't CNBC point out the absolute absurdity of Santelli's position?

4. Kudlow and Trish Regan made a big push one day for the privatization of social security. It is clear to everyone that mainstreet has washed its hands of stocks and the street is drooling for the fees that could be generated by privatization of social security. No, we don't want this, CNBC. We don't believe you have the interests of mainstreet at heart. You have done nothing to assure us.

5. Cramer was caught pumping and dumping stocks, and even admitted to the dissemination of misinformation about stocks, and was even investigated at one point. But CNBC lets the slime ball, along with other former Goldman Sachs men, remain on CNBC. In the interest of objective journalism these people need to go. Kick them off the air, CNBC, or you cannot earn the trust of mainstreet, by keeping the Najarians around, or by keeping around any folks who have been involved in Goldman Sachs. It just doesn't work, and your ratings are starting to suffer even by keeping Kudlow and Burnett around. CNBC has gathered the appearance of sleaze and dirt if not an earned reputation of same. No one is accusing these people of breaking the law. Perhaps the right laws have not yet been written. It is the appearance of conflict of interest and the appearance of improper behavior that has likely reduced viewership.

6. The John Carney assault on insider trading laws has stepped up just prior to and during the expert network investigations that may point to Steve Cohen, a favorite of Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and other investment banks. I have appreciated Carney's astute observation about Basel 3 in the past, and John even quoted me once, but I noticed recently that he is speaking at hedge funds. We saw how ineffective that sort of behavior made Larry Summers, who did nothing for mainstreet as Obama's financial guru. And John considers Michael Milken a great American and Enron as being unfairly prosecuted. Sheesh!

Perhaps Wall Street is a different planet. Or maybe Carney is betting that mainstreet is asleep and won't notice; which was once likely true, but may not be anymore. If you have article after article defending hedge funds, while deriving speaking fees from hedge funds it just looks bad, though I am sure it is perfectly legal. [Clarification, John Carney has stated, upon reading this article, that he does not receive payments for conference speaking as it is against his contract at CNBC. He has been scheduled to speak at conferences, especially the Milken Conference prior to being employed at CNBC. I have apologized to him for the factual error which does not destroy my point regarding CNBC being a team player for Wall Street.]

Fast Money, where the former Goldman Sachs boys, the Najarians appear, is certainly a helpful show, except that the flash crash drove stocks of great companies like Accenture to almost zero. Day traders are abandoning the show, partly because of the flash crash and partly because they can't get equity out of their homes to gamble with.

I think it took the housing bubble and bust to awaken many on mainstreet to the utter corruption and decadence that is Wall Street. Carney and CNBC got away with this pumping of Wall Street for years, even as the Nasdaq went up to 5000, only to lose more than half it's value. But the street got arrogant with the housing ponzi, publically so, and brazen. When you screw with families on mainstreet, brazen behavior is considered an attack. That is what make's Carney's view of Wall Street, in the light of these attacks, so absurd.

Here Are Some of Carney's Defenses of Wall Street Greed

Here is a Carney article stating that "the SEC cannot detect fraud at hedge funds". Apparently with the new investigation of SAC that may be a very untrue statement.

Here is an introduction of John Carney as a senior editor at CNBC. How can a guy who is paid for speaking at hedge funds be a news editor and objectively report? I don't get it. At least stop taking hedge fund gigs John! CNBC appears to mainstreet as being dirty, John. These gigs don't help the perception! I know it is all perfectly legal, but come on!

Here is John Carney defending Goldman Sachs as the less bad bad guy!

Here John is laughing with his CNBC cronies regarding insider trading and hedge funds. Funny stuff John! NOT.

Here is John stating that the case against Raj was a waste of time. Was it John?

Here is John arguing that naked shorting doesn't matter. Really John?

Here is John hating the idea of prosecution of Lehman's execs. After all, they failed and all the execs should be prosecuted or none at all is what I get out of the article. Fine, then lets go after the execs of every bank that received a dime of bailout money, or loans from the Fed at the discount window. Get em all! But, if that is not possible, don't let Lehman execs off the hook. Sheesh again.


Read the article here


7 COMMENTS:

Joyce said...

Here's a comment about Investment Banking written by KraftpaperUSA on DealBook here:

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2010/12/20/blankfein-sees-investment-banking-revival-analyst-says/

What is investment banking?
(a) buying back bonds of corporations when interest rates are low so bond holders lose the remaining years of earnings at a higher interest rate

(b) Or, allowing corporations to refinance because their CFO was let's say more MBA than astute.

(c) taking a tax relief check from Uncle Sam and investing in China. Then calling all the close relatives to invest. Then letting your partners in on the deal. The making a public announcement while putting sales prices in to gobble up the profits.

(d) trading in shares before they become public

(e) having free and open access to cheap loans at the window and charging 30% on cards

(f) having a monopoly on proprietary trading practices and loans with states and municipalities.

(g) having the ear and the back pocket of the delegates, congresspersons and local constabulary

(h) having your picture on the wall and getting credit for the boom times

(i) paying no taxes and

(j) bragging rights to everything.

Anonymous said...

A Cheery Holiday Message from Bankster: Death Eaters on Wall Street


Of course the “life settlements industry” would not be possible with out the financing and backing of big Wall Street banks, the triple-A rating from Wall Street credit agencies and, of course, the quality work of the “big four” accounting firms. The recently-indicted Ernst and Young cooks the books for Life Partners. Last year BanksterUSA targeted Goldman Sachs’ financing of this emerging industry. This year, Goldman shut down Longmore Capital, its death bonds subsidiary, and withdrew from the market.


http://www.banksterusa.org/content/cheery-holiday-message-bankster-death-eaters-wall-street

Anonymous said...

this guy is a regular on the station of elation...

Thursday, December 23, 2010
Inside Job’s Charles Ferguson on the Corruption of Academic Economics

Readers may have seen the movie Inside Job (if you haven’t, you really need to) or a clip from the movie that got quite a bit of attention on finance blogs, that of director Charles Ferguson grilling former Federal Reserve vice chairman Frederic Mishkin on some dubious work he did touting Iceland as a well run banking center not long before its implosion.


http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2010/12/inside-jobs-charles-ferguson-on-the-corruption-of-academic-economics.html

Joyce said...

The video at Nakedcapitalism.com is well worth watching.

Anonymous said...

12.24.2010

As we move ahead into 2011, one theme presented is a matrix like split in western societies, particularly in the US. This split revolves around a corporate media portrayal of the world where reality is landscaped by an ideology, and by an actual reality that increasingly diverges from that untouchable paradigm of media concocted “truth”.

In this synthesized version of reality revolving around ideals such as fan worship, celebrity gossip and political correctness, independent or critical thinking is discouraged. Inconvenient events are to be quickly forgotten or deconstructed into an unrelated chain of events.

From the corporate media there are instead sound bites, bright lights, smiling faces, and corporate media news lies built around an ideological and political agenda. Anyone in the media who fails to dutifully execute the party line propaganda is quickly un personed. Any high profile figure who dares to contradict the party line encounters a vindictive character assassination by the people who formulate everything you think you know. The “experts” they promote are professors of fraud, quite often of the now thoroughly debunked Keynesian economic theory kind.

http://earthblognews.wordpress.com/2010/12/24/the-split/

Joyce said...

Earthblognews above has many interesting articles, especially on the Federal Reserve.

Gary Anderson said...

Hi Joyce, you have some great info here. And thanks for running this article which has a minor correction now if you read the link in my name. But the essence of the article remains true. There is video evidence in the article that Sue Herrera and Simon and the rest were all laughing with John while discussing insider trading. I think the whole episode was disgusting.

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