Goldman Sachs's Monetary "Settlements" are Unsettling

Why would anyone trust a bank such as Goldman Sachs when it is continuously being sued for fraud or malfeasance or whatever? Most people would not be bothered to deal with a bank that pushes the laws to the limit in its financial undertakings. It is hard to understand how Goldman Sachs can be proud of its record when it is being sued, accused of fraud, found guilty of creating and selling toxic assets to others while profiting itself, pushing the limits of the law in its dealings, lobbying both parties to pass laws deregulating banking rules and supplying the government with its own people who appear to run public finances for the benefit of the banks rather than the public.

When banks like Goldman Sachs, who make billions and billions of dollars each year, are "punished" by paying mere millions in compensation, Goldman Sachs treats such settlements as merely the "cost of doing business."

There are banks that exist that are honest, careful with their risks and free from fraud and malfeasance. Why don't we see the demise of the Goldman Sachs and the rise of honest banks? When the question of honest banks was raised by a blogger, the answer was to use a credit union or a local commercial bank.

So, for this posting, here is a reprise of one of the latest of Goldman Sachs's failings:

State of Michign settles with Goldman Sachs

Goldman Sachs gives Michigan investors access to $32 million in capital, pays state over $90,000 by Margaret Lucas Agium - Detroit Legal News Examiner

The State of Michigan has reached an Auction Rate Securities (ARS) settlement with Goldman, Sachs and Co., the Office of Financial and Insurance Regulation (OFIR) reported Thursday. The settlement requires Goldman Sachs to offer full buybacks of up to approximately $32 million to any eligible Michigan customer who purchased an ARS from the brokerage firm.

The settlement also requires the brokerage firm to make a settlement payment of approximately $91,000 of which it deposited 90 percent immediately into the State of Michigan’s general fund, as required by law. The 10 percent went into OFIR’s Michigan Investor Protection Trust.

The settlement with Goldman Sachs is in addition to previous settlements with Banc of America, Citigroup, Comerica, Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, RBC Capital Markets, Stifel Nicolaus, UBS and Wachovia. In total, OFIR settlements have resulted in offers for full buybacks of more than $4.37 billion to Michigan consumers and settlement payments of more than $9.5 million to the State of Michigan.

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