Once again, our illustrious Securities and Exchange Commission acts on what I call a feel good agenda. By feel good agenda, I mean it takes an action to make the public believe they are doing something worthwhile when in fact the action is rather meaningless.
SEC to Ban Asset-Backed Bets
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) proposed on Monday that financial institutions either underwriting or sponsoring asset-backed securities (ABS) be restricted from making profits out of the losses of investors for one year. The SEC proposal is in the interest of investors who were losing their hard earned money due to the ABS originators’ bets on bundled financial products.Our illustrious SEC after hearing the accusations made against Goldman Sachs - as indicated in the paragraph I highlighted above - has decided to ban such questionable activities for just one year. In other words, they are actually condoning these actions by allowing them to continue after a one year waiting period. The hope, I believe, is that the general public will by then have forgotten the ill gained profits of institutions such as Goldman Sachs and Paulson & Co.
Earlier this year, U.S. Senate investigators raised issues accusing Goldman Sachs (GS - Analyst Report) of earning profits from clients' losses on complex financial products sold by them. Goldman used to create and market a collateralized debt obligation known as ABACUS 2007-AC1, hiding from investors the fact that the underlying securities were selected by hedge fund Paulson & Co, which was betting against them. However, Goldman settled the SEC accusation for $550 million. (emphasis added)
The latest proposal by SEC is expected to address the cases like Goldman’s by outlawing third parties from selecting underlying securities of an ABS.
But why not? Our Too Big To Fail, To Big To Prosecute institutions need merely pay a relatively small fine for their wrong and often illegal activities. WHAT A COUNTRY!
According to some industry executives, the strict restrictions imposed by the SEC could hamper the recovery of the securitization market (emphasis added). However, we think it’s more important to significantly rationalize the risky activities taken by financial institutions that went on to become the key culprits of the latest meltdown. Also, as the restrictions will not be applicable when a firm is hedging its risk or acting as a market-maker, the impact on the recovery of securitization market will be mild.I am wondering who the industry executives are that can say that a one year moratorium on a very questionable activity that should be banned permanently, is a strict restriction imposed by the SEC?
View this story in its entirety on Zachs...click here
A somewhat more detailed version of this story can be found from Reuters via The Huffington Post...click here
Just more evidence that we have a government gone wild. A government that cares not for its people only its very large corporate citizens - some of whom have actually left the country (I speak of Halliburton - the larges private contractor in Iraq and Afghanistan now a Dubai company while still being paid billions by our government. Also remember that our former V.P. of the United States was their CEO before being nominated to run for VP with George W. But that is another story in itself).
Understand that this is still a proposal and nothing that has been put into effect. Again, to qualify for feel good reports the SEC is almost obligated to publicize this. I am willing to bet it never goes into effect and that this proposal as with many investigations by the SEC will simply be brushed under that large cover up rug.
12 COMMENTS:
Bipartisan corporatism
Class war!
Sep 20th 2011
Mr Obama claims to be on the side of the working and middle-classes, but I would submit that this sort of tax policy is in fact trivial. It's electoral public relations. The edges are precisely what this sort of thing is around. Our economy is riddled with a multitude of deeply-embedded structural flaws that allow the well-connected to enrich themselves at the expense of the rest of us, but nobody will do anything about it. There is a class war in this country, a war between the subsidy barons, the regulatory arbitrageurs, the patent monopolists and the rest of us. Mr Obama is a class warrior. The trouble is he's on the wrong side.
One wants to have faith in one's fellow man, but when someone is charged with overseeing the redistribution of billions upon billions of dollars to banks and insurers no doubt staffed by people he knows, one might worry that prior business relationships, and the prospect of highly remunerative future relationships, might skew his decisionmaking, especially if he is left almost entirely free from public scrutiny.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2011/09/bipartisan-corporatism-2
Cornel West "Escalating Civil Disobedience Is Necessary To Wake The Country Up!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLPGxiukq1k&feature=player_embedded
Dancing ghosts
Administrations in the US may change, but the
unholy alliance between Washington and Wall
Street carries on — they too have a communal
interest in more and more paper. In Europe for
years senior French and German civil servants
have gathered in pleasant chateaux to sip dusty
claret and set policy for millions. Elected
representatives have only faint voices and the
people none. The media have generally acted
like trained seals.
But polls everywhere are saying people have had
enough bureaucratic decision-making on their
behalf.
Polls in the US show dissatisfaction with almost
everything.
http://gata.org/node/10473
California’s Governor to choose Main Street or Wall Street with public bank bill
Governor Brown, so far, has upheld the current criminal political and
economic “leadership,” and requires a “Scrooge conversion” before he
becomes a partner of the people. We know this is true because he
does not declare his support for the people with other “emperor has no
clothes” obvious crimes of “leadership”:
Perhaps the most egregious documentation of current California
government fraud is in the data of collective government Comprehensive
Annual Financial Reports (CAFRs) that reveal trillions of our dollars
“invested” on Wall Street while lying in omission that they have no
money for budgets.
http://dailycensored.com/2011/09/20/california%E2%80%99s-governor-to-choose-main-street-or-wall-street-with-public-bank-bill/
I guess this is the "BEST" the SEC can come up with against Goldman?
SEC Charges Former Goldman Sachs Employee and His Father with Insider Trading
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
2011-188
Washington, D.C., Sept. 21, 2011 — The Securities and Exchange
Commission today charged a former Goldman, Sachs & Co. employee and
his father with insider trading on confidential information about
Goldman’s trading strategies and intentions that he learned while
working on the firm’s exchange-traded funds (ETF) desk.
Additional Materials
Administrative Proceeding
http://www.sec.gov/litigation/admin/2011/33-9261.pdf
It's all one big come on...no regulation, ethics, or integrity anywhere....
Awkward: House leaders to honor Rangel nine months after censure
It may be one of the more awkward honorary ceremonies in recent memory.
On Thursday, House leaders will pay tribute to Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), less than a year after the House formally censured the former chairman of the Ways and Means Committee.
Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) will speak at a ceremony to unveil Rangel’s official portrait as chairman of the storied committee, which the longtime New York Democrat led from 2007 until March 2010, when party leaders pressured him to give up the post amid a growing ethics scandal.
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/183047-house-leaders-to-honor-rangel-nine-months-after-censure
The SEC likes picking up pennies in a room covered with $100 bills...they're the creme de la crap!
The same Wall Street banks whose irresponsible actions led to our nation's economic collapse are now pressuring all 50 states to give them legal immunity. The banks want to block any criminal or civil accountability for actions that have yet to be investigated.
Attorneys General from Delaware, Minnesota, Nevada, and New York have been fighting back. Today, I want to make a clear statement in support of Wall Street accountability and against immunity for banks -- and I ask you to join me on this statement:
"Today's economic crisis was caused by Wall Street acting improperly. Every American has paid the price -- with families losing their homes, investors losing their money, and many Americans losing their jobs. There should be absolutely no criminal or civil immunity given to banks for activity that has not yet been investigated."
If you agree, add your voice to this statement by clicking here -- so America hears our voices together.
http://act.boldprogressives.org/sign/petition_conway/?source=link-typ&referring_akid=5241.204938.xP1tkm
"Administrations in the US may change, but the
unholy alliance between Washington and Wall
Street carries on..."
Dancing ghosts, thank you for this post and the link. I too have always believed that it matters not who is resident in the White House as many things remain the same with each change.
There is an "unholy" alliance between Wall Street and Washington. The question is who in Washington is the alliance with and how to they keep the control they do with each change of power? Is it that whoever they are (I have always called them a shadow government) are the REAL power in Washington. Are they aligned with the Rothschilds, the Bush's or that somewhat public but secret group the Bilderbergers?
"The Bilderbergers are an international group composed of European
Royalty, Wall Street investors, politicians, international bankers,
prominent businessmen, media executives, and military leaders from
around the planet."
Do your own research on the Bilderbergers and form your own opinion.
Well said Sheriffofnottingham. That is exactly what they are and have been doing - picking up pennies and leaving the $100 bills. Question is - who is instructing them to do so? They are not doing this on their own.
There is a class war going on and it is almost over. The upper "elite" class is winning and continuing on with their heist.
The banking and financial industry, the oil industry and even the food industry is leading this war effort on behalf of the "HAVE'S who keep taking from the HAVE NOT'S (us). The bigger a company gets the more they rip us off to enrich themselves. If we need them then we have no choice. Morality is out. Fair play is out and certainly fair profits are a thing of the past.
Letting big companies grow bigger and become Too Big To Fail is gong to be the downfall of this country and all of us Have Not's - the former GREAT middle class.
Is it Too late - Toolate? I don't think so. We still have the power of the people. We are 300 million strong, we have the power of the vote and the power to change things. After all, that is how this country was founded and flourished.
Stop the price gouging. There used to be a law against that. Stop price fixing. There used to be a law against that. Stop corporations from fleecing their customers. Airlines, Cell phone companies even grocery store chains - STOP ROBBING US.
MEP Nigel Farage
http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/Broadcast/Entries/2011/9/23_MEP_Nigel_Farage.html
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