Goldman Sachs, Rating Agencies Blamed in Crisis Probe

[deminks]

Source: CNBC

Conflicts of interest, excessive risk-taking and failures of government oversight triggered the financial crisis and helped push the country into the deepest recession since the Great Depression, concludes a new report by the U.S. Senate.

The two-year, bipartisan probe by the Senate Investigations Subcommittee examined the economic crisis and the role played by Wall Street in creating it.

The Republican and Democrat co-chairs of the committee agree on its findings.

"The report tells an inside story of economic assault that cost millions of Americans their jobs and their homes while wiping out investors, good business and market," said Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich).

"It shows without a doubt that lack of ethics in some of our financial institutions who embraced known conflicts of interest to accomplish wealth for themselves, not caring about the outcome for their customers," said Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla).

Read more: http://www.cnbc.com/id/42576329

[some guy]

1. Yea.

The Senate in bipartisan fashion agrees who was responsible, and that they don't need to be strongly regulated, nor any individuals sent to prison.

Quelle surprise.

:mad:

[xchrom]

2. These are the most interesting and most important stories

In American life today.

[JackRiddler]

10. And increasingly the most ignored as the all-deficit, blame the poor and

bust the unions to Save America memes take hold.

The Simpson-Bowles Catfood Commission is setting the agenda, along with Boehner and the radical Republican governors. The far more important Angelides report about the actual causes of the economic crisis (and implicitly: what to do about them) and the commission of enormous crimes against the nation is treated as a footnote.

[Rex]

3. It all started with the clear SCOTUS conflict of interest in 2000.

And that is why I directly blame Scarface and Slappy for the downfall of America...the others were just stupid tools.

[Arctic Dave]

4. So who goes to prison?

What they did far exceeds a little gaming of the system, they were in the flat out fraud, conspiracy and racketeering land.

[lovuian]

5. yes Goldman Sachs keeps coming up over and over again

and we have Goldman Sachs expersonnel in charge of our Treasury

[QUALAR]

6. A Way Forward

Forward the report to Holder at the Justice Department and tell him to do his fucking job for a change. I'm tired of hearing about corporate criminals being slapped on the wrist or the DOJ saying that there's no evidence of criminal activity. What does our "community organizer" think about the corporate fraud committed by his benefactors. FDR would have every one of those crooks locked up until they forked over the loot. President Obama should read more about FDR and DDE and less about Ronald Reagan.

[Hestia]

7. It's all those damned Liberty & Jones University "graduates" that invaded Justice

during *'s terms. It was an open door policy with those two institutions. It's given corporations carte' blanche to stripping of all civil liberty laws, or at least "they can't find enough evidence to bring the case to court." It's not by accident that nothing gets done. Do you think the TSA gropings and the militarization of our local peace officers is by accident? Nope, these "lawyers" have made sure this all goes on and worse because they are told they don't like the laws on the books. So they ignore them, all while getting seniority and civil servant status, so they are extremely difficult to fire. All in the name of your government. These are the people that Obama said he would not fire, that there would be no major shakeups in the different levels of the federal government.

[JDPriestly]

8. After reading Griftopia, I think that the crash was not just

the result of bad decisions.

Remember the bad intelligence that Bush relied on when he decided to go into Iraq.

The crash was not just the result of system failures. I think that people cheated and then extorted money.

Note how the decision to bail out Wall Street and some of the biggest companies in the US was agreed to in the last days, perhaps the last hours of fundraising by the Republicans and Democrats, right before the general election in 2003. How could Bush, Obama or McCain say no?

Perfect timing.

[JackRiddler]

11. The crash was the predictable result of a common business plan among the banksters.

And it was predicted, for the reasons it happened, by a great many observers, starting with Dean Baker already in 2004, as well as by Michael Hudson (on the cover of Harper's no less), Mike Ruppert, Nouriel Roubini and others. One of the most evil lies told in the aftermath has been the persistent one about how no one saw it coming. Sometimes told by the very same people who knew they were soliciting bad mortgages from an unsustainable market, writing bad paper and selling it to suckers with false ratings, and then betting against it on the derivatives market. And who even understood that a crash would result, possibly destroying their own institutions. And who cared only for their personal bottom line in the form of bonuses. You get bonuses for making deals, not for making wise business decisions. Volume was everything. They killed the six-ton elephant (the financial economy) merely to harvest a 50-lb. tusk (the bonuses) for themselves.

And they ALL GOT AWAY WITH IT AND HOLD MORE POWER IN GOVERNMENT AND ECONOMY THAN EVER, so far.

By the way: see "Inside Job"!!! It's great!

[jakeXT]

16. Lots of people saw it

[JackRiddler]

17. Nice graphic -- where is it from? Note however that Baker already called it in 2004!

Check this out:

http://www.thenation.com/article/bushs-house-cards

Bush's House of Cards
Dean Baker
August 9, 2004 | This article appeared in the August 16, 2004 edition of The Nation.

The latest data on growth suggest that the economy may again be faltering, just when President Bush desperately needs good numbers to make the case for his re-election. As bad as the Bush economic record is, it would be far worse if not for the growth of an unsustainable housing bubble through the three and a half years of the Bush Administration.

------------

As for Michael Hudson, May 2006 Harper's magazine cover (would have been out in March 2006).

[jakeXT]

18. here are the links

http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2009/07/13/61656/who-saw-it-coming-and-the-primacy-of-accounting/

http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/15892/1/MPRA_paper_15892.pdf

[defendandprotect]

9. k

[DCKit]

12. Tom Coburn spoke the truth, yet his head didn't explode.

Wonders never cease.

[bemildred]

13. Senate panel concludes Goldman Sachs profited from financial crisis

After a two-year bipartisan probe, a Senate panel has concluded that Goldman Sachs Group Inc. profited from the financial crisis by betting billions against the subprime mortgage market, then deceived investors and Congress about the firm's conduct.

Some of the findings in the report by the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations will be referred to the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission for possible criminal or civil action, said Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the panel's chairman.

"In my judgment, Goldman clearly misled their clients and they misled the Congress," Levin told reporters before the report was made public late Wednesday.

Goldman said it disagreed with many of the subcommittee's conclusions and denied its executives misled Congress. The firm agreed last year to pay $550 million to settle a civil fraud case brought by the SEC regarding its actions in the market for mortgage securities. The latest allegations go beyond the conduct covered by the SEC suit.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-crisis-probe-20110414,0,6709903.story

[arrestblankfein]

14. They need to be held accountable

Clinton was impeached for lying under oath. Remember the Republicans droning on and on about it??


Key Senator Calls For Criminal Investigation of Goldman Sachs Lloyd Blankfein

http://t.co/f0EFibj

[No Elephants]

15. Yet some folks still believe "liar loans" were the problem. Unreal.

[UpInArms]

19. so, Coburn, are you ready to give up on "self-regulating" corporations

because they are so "ethical"?