McClatchy Investigation Exposes Goldman Sachs Corruption And Influence Over Treasury Dept

by on Monday, December 7, 2009 at 5:29 pm in Politics

Greg Gordon of McClatchy Newspapers conducted a five-month investigation into the shady corrupt dealings of Wall Street investment bank Goldman Sachs, and here is some of what he found:

McClatchy’s inquiry found that Goldman Sachs:

  • Bought and converted into high-yield bonds tens of thousands of mortgages from subprime lenders that became the subjects of FBI investigations into whether they’d misled borrowers or exaggerated applicants’ incomes to justify making hefty loans.
  • Used offshore tax havens to shuffle its mortgage-backed securities to institutions worldwide, including European and Asian banks, often in secret deals run through the Cayman Islands, a British territory in the Caribbean that companies use to bypass U.S. disclosure requirements.
  • Has dispatched lawyers across the country to repossess homes from bankrupt or financially struggling individuals, many of whom lacked sufficient credit or income but got subprime mortgages anyway because Wall Street made it easy for them to qualify.
  • Was buoyed last fall by key federal bailout decisions, at least two of which involved then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, a former Goldman chief executive whose staff at Treasury included several other Goldman alumni.

The firm benefited when Paulson elected not to save rival Lehman Brothers from collapse, and when he organized a massive rescue of tottering global insurer American International Group while in constant telephone contact with Goldman chief Blankfein. With the Federal Reserve Board’s blessing, AIG later used $12.9 billion in taxpayers’ dollars to pay off every penny it owed Goldman.

These decisions preserved billions of dollars in value for Goldman’s executives and shareholders. For example, Blankfein held 1.6 million shares in the company in September 2008, and he could have lost more than $150 million if his firm had gone bankrupt.

With the help of more than $23 billion in direct and indirect federal aid, Goldman appears to have emerged intact from the economic implosion, limiting its subprime losses to $1.5 billion. By repaying $10 billion in direct federal bailout money — a 23 percent taxpayer return that exceeded federal officials’ demand — the firm has escaped tough federal limits on 2009 bonuses to executives of firms that received bailout money.

Goldman announced record earnings in July, and the firm is on course to surpass $50 billion in revenue in 2009 and to pay its employees more than $20 billion in year-end bonuses.

The fact that Henry Paulson,  Lloyd Blankfein, and other Goldman officials are still walking around as free citizens — and will undoubtedly continue to do so — just demonstrates how we have one rule of law for the elites in this country, and then an entirely other one for everyone else.  President Obama and his Attorney General Eric Holder will NEVER allow an independent investigation into the Treasury Department’s dealings in the matter.

America may be a lot of things, but it is NO LONGER a nation of laws.

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1 Comment

  • Dec 8th, 2009 at 11:36 am

    You left out Goldman Sachs Secret Software they use. here is the story.

    Secret Software & Naked Short Selling
    We need NSS arrests – not Insider Trading arrests
    It is November 5th, 2009 at high noon and the SEC is all over the news about another arrest. They are all on stage giving this big press conference on 14 arrests for Insider Trading connected to the Galleon Group investigation. Is it Insider Trading? The Government wanted the world to believe this caused the financial meltdown on Wall Street. Three weeks earlier the SEC made the first arrest for Insider Trading involving Raj Rajaratnam and 5 other people on Wall Street.
    It is my opinion that the Government and the SEC is involved in a cover up to try and make people think that it was insider trading that caused the crisis of 2008. Let the truth be known. The news media, along with Goldman Sachs and many other Wall Street companies and people of power are all involved in the biggest cover up in the history of the United States. It involves greed to the fullest extend. The SEC is responsible, under the leadership of Christopher Cox in July 2007, the Securities Exchange Commission abolished the Up Tick rule. The elimination of the Up Tick rule created a wave of corruption that grew out of control, based on Naked Short Selling and the use of secret software and super fast computers.
    Insider trading has played a role in the financial crisis, yet the story not being told by the news media is the arrest of a Goldman Sachs employee who tried to steal Goldman Sachs secret software. This arrest came over the July 4th Holiday week-end and was aired briefly on a Saturday night on TV and then came Monday July 6th, 2009 and the story disapeared. A few weeks later Goldman Sachs reported its FY 2009 2nd QT earnings ( April – May -June ) and Goldman Sachs made over $100 million dollars a day in 46 of the 64 trading days for that quarter. How could this be possible after a 17 month recession. Wall Street changed two major Laws. The first being the use of decimal places (2001 )instead of fraction. Years later and after they lobbied for the removal of the Up Tick rule ( 2007 ) the secret software was designed and in place ready to go into full operation now that Wall Street was allowed to naked short sell millions upon millions of shares that Goldman Sachs and other hedge funds didn’t even own and failed to deliver. Their greed took over, who wouldn’t , when Goldman Sachs was making over $100 million a day in trading. They destroyed companies like Sirius XM radio and overstock.com and many others. Then they began naked shorting the banking industry and attacking each other.
    This is the truth that the news media, corporate Amercia, the SEC, the Government, Goldman Sachs, Hank Paulson and the many others that were in power have not told the American people and the world. Now, as I write this letter, they are now trying to con the world into thinking it was insider trading that caused 95% of the middle class workers to lose 20% – 60 % of their investments and 401K’s.
    In the end the Entire story will be told and I hope I get my chance to tell it. Check the facts. There was an arrest of that Goldman Sachs employee in July 2009. Why was it covered up? Where are the arrests for Naked Short Selling and Goldman Sachs use of their secret software that stole the wealth off investors all across the country. It will go down as the biggest scandal in history.
    I give you permission to re-print this letter. Please follow up and investigate. This story needs to be told. Please contact me. It is exactly what is taken place.

    Richard Keane