Now it's time for the other side from The Daily Bail - Debt & Deficit Portal. Bailout News. Federal Reserve Corruption:
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An important point not mentioned by Cohan below is that by the time Goldman began entering into CDS contracts with AIG, they were often creating the underlying securites. That is to say, Goldman had a hand in making the CDOs, so they knew that the CDS had a better chance of paying off than AIG assumed when they wrote the contracts.
Cohan, via the FCIC report, does however provide amazing new detail and general color of the internal back-and-forth with Goldman execs, including the possibility of collusion between Goldman and French bank Société Générale, who pocketed more than $16 billion from U.S. taxpayers via AIG.
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Janet Tavakoli offers additional detail...
s Tructured f Inance , i Nc .
You can read the information (with many great links) here
3 COMMENTS:
even n. chomsky mentions goldman....
Noam Chomsky said that the Wisconsin protests might be the start of a "democracy uprising".
http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2011/02/dodd-chomsky-celente-and-military-warn.html
In simple terms, Bailout Ben, in a mere year and a half, has overseen the destruction of 30% of US household wealth (from a housing and stock bubble he FAILED to see coming while working under Greenspan). He has yet to do a single thing to protect the average American or the dollar, but instead has opted to funnel trillions of taxpayer dollars over to Wall Street so that Goldman Sachs and friends could claim they’re not insolvent and pay themselves RECORD bonuses.
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/bernankes-real-legacy-helping-goldman-sachs-fleece-us-all-0
MORALITY or ETHICS.
Everyone’s analysis of this financial crisis is far too complicated. The simple facts are that it was created by complete and utter greed on the part of various regulators and financiers.
In simple terms, the banks (investment and otherwise) lobbied Congress, the SEC, and other regulators to let them engage in business practices that were neither sensible nor responsible (excess leverage, financial wizardry that turned junk subprime assets into “AAA” rated entities, and more). They did this under the pretence that these practices would be good for the market and US economy as a whole.
The reality is that these practices allowed the banks to make ENORMOUS profits: between 1970 and 2003, financial stocks’ earnings as a percentage of the S&P 500’s total earnings rose from less than 10% to 31%. Put another way, by 2003, financials accounted for nearly 1/3 of ALL profits made by publicly traded companies.
Now, THE largest expense for any financial company is SALARIES. So when banks and financial companies lobbied to have their leverage limits increased (or any number of other changes that were made in the ‘90s and ‘00s), they did it for one reason: to collect HUGE payouts.
Ever since this Crisis began, the guys behind the bailouts and other “solutions” have used the law or legal precedent to justify their actions. Bernanke, for example, has cited all kinds of laws that give him the right to throw tax-payer money around, monetize debt, and all the other financial hocus pocus he’s engaged in. Same goes for Hank Paulson (who somehow managed to convince the government that he was an impartial figure despite making $500 million+ at Goldman Sachs).
http://tinyurl.com/4f526lf
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