Indict Lehman Brothers (and Geithner?): They Lied

[marmar]

from the workinglife blog:



Indict Lehman Brothers (and Geithner?): They Lied
by Jonathan Tasini

Friday 12 of March, 2010


I have been dismayed at the willingness to let the Wall Street executives off the hook--allowing them to walk free, continue to collect bonuses and salaries and even give them jobs in government after they conducted what was perhaps the biggest fraud in financial history. We cannot let them escape justice. And, based on the evidence released today, we need to start with Lehman Brothers, and in particular Richard Fuld, the former CEO.

Here is what an independent bank examiner concludes:

But the examiner, Anton R. Valukas, also for the first time laid out what the report characterized as "materially misleading" accounting gimmicks that Lehman used to mask the perilous state of its finances. The bank’s bankruptcy, the largest in American history, shook the financial world. Fears that other banks might topple in a cascade of failures eventually led Washington to arrange a sweeping rescue for the nation’s financial system.

According to the report, Lehman used what amounted to financial engineering to temporarily shuffle $50 billion off its books in the months before its collapse in September 2008 to conceal its dependence on leverage, or borrowed money. Senior Lehman executives, as well as the bank’s accountants at Ernst & Young, were aware of the moves, according to Mr. Valukas, a partner at the law firm Jenner & Block, who filed the report in connection with Lehman’s bankruptcy case.

Richard S. Fuld Jr., Lehman’s former chief executive, certified the misleading accounts, the report said.

"Unbeknownst to the investing public, rating agencies, government regulators, and Lehman’s board of directors, Lehman reverse engineered the firm’s net leverage ratio for public consumption," Mr. Valukas wrote.

Mr. Fuld was "at least grossly negligent," the report states. Henry M. Paulson Jr., who was then the Treasury secretary, warned Mr. Fuld that Lehman might fail unless it stabilized its finances or found a buyer.

Lehman executives engaged in what the report characterized as "actionable balance sheet manipulation," in addition to "nonculpable errors of business judgment." (emphasis added)

The report does not make any judgment whether Fuld and other executives committed felonies or other violations of securities' law. But, as The Wall Street Journal reports:

The Manhattan and Brooklyn U.S. attorney's offices are investigating, among other things, whether former Lehman executives misled investors about the firm's financial picture before it filed for bankruptcy protection, and whether Lehman improperly valued its real-estate assets, people familiar with the matter have said.

With the caveat that I am not a securities law expert, it is hard not to read the excerpts from the report and come away believing that there is not enough evidence for an indictment and a trial before a jury. .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.workinglife.org/blogs/view_post.php?content_id=14756

[xchrom]

1. Wrong doing happened- thievery- negligence-

Cooking the books- and on and on.

Either we prosecute peole like this or
give up the pretence that we are a nation of laws.

[AllentownJake]

2. What should happen

Every person above 2nd VP in corporate finance should be fitted with a set of handcuffs. The CEO should also get a nice shiny set. The partner and managers in charge of the audit at E&Y also marched down in handcuffs.

E&Y should be dissolved. Arther Andersen was taken out in 2002 for similar bullshit that did less damage, and they didn't even have a tax practice that defrauded the federal government and got caught. The auditing firm obviously has a cultural problem, and like Andersen, I doubt the culture can be reformed. Corporate Death Penalty for the firm.

After that there should be a congressional investigation into what Tim Geithner knew, and when. He should resign, I doubt he has the time to manage the US Treasury and mount a legal defense.

Will this happen, nope Barack loves these guys, they are his good businessmen.

[sam sarrha]

3. but they are TOO RICH to indite, wealth proves gods favor of a man, its a sin to tax rich men >Link

http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html
the bottom 80% have only 7% of financial Americas wealth.. god is definately on their side

these guys have definately taken over the GOP, ..
http://doggo.tripod.com/doggchrisdomin.html
"snip...Leo Strauss was born in 1899 and died in 1973. ... He is most famous for resuscitating Machiavelli and introducing his principles as the guiding philosophy of the neo-conservative movement. ... More than any other man, Strauss breathed upon conservatism, inspiring it to rise from its atrophied condition and its natural dislike of change and to embrace an unbounded new political ideology that rides on the back of a revolutionary steed, hailing even radical change; hence the name Neo-Conservatives.

Significantly, Dominionism is a form of Social Darwinism.<48> It inherently includes the religious belief that wealth-power is a sign of God’s election. That is, out of the masses of people and the multitude of nations, wealth, in and of itself, is thought to indicate God’s approval on men and nations whereas poverty and sickness reflect God’s disapproval.

(It was not until I read this article that I realized that this is a fundamental tenet of Dominionists.

Worldly wealth and power are signs of God's favor -- to attempt to limit or decrease one's wealth and power is to disrespect God.

On the contrary, God's elect on Earth are called upon to increase their wealth and power.

It is not sufficient for a man to be a millionaire, or for a country to have sovereignty within its borders -- a man must strive to increase his wealth as much as possible, and a Dominionist government's behavior toward its neighbors must be "invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity".

Furthermore, any attempt to decrease a person's or a country's wealth and power -- to take from the rich to give to the poor, to reduce military spending and power -- is a direct attack on God.)

If “Secular Humanists are the greatest threat to Christianity the world has ever known,” as theologian Francis Schaeffer claimed, then who are the Humanists? According to Dominionists, humanists are the folks who allow or encourage licentious behavior in America. They are the undisciplined revelers.

Put all the enemies of the Dominionists together, boil them down to liquid and bake them into the one single most highly derided and contaminated individual known to man, and you will have before you an image of the quintessential “liberal” -- one of those folks who wants to give liberally to the poor and needy -- who desires the welfare and happiness of all Americans -- who insists on safety regulations for your protection and who desires the preservation of your values -- those damnable people are the folks that must be reduced to powerlessness -- or worse: extinction.

What would a “reconstructed” America look like under the Dominionists? K.L. Gentry, a Dominionist himself, suggests the following “elements of a theonomic approach to civic order,” which I strongly suggest should be compared to the Texas GOP platform of 2002, which reveals that we are not just talking about imaginary ideas but some things are already proposed on Republican agendas.<60> Dominionism’s concept of government according to Gentry is as follows:

“1. It obligates government to maintain just monetary policies ... fiat money, fractional reserve banking, and deficit spending.

“2. It provides a moral basis for elective government officials. ...

“3. It forbids undue, abusive taxation of the rich. ...

“4. It calls for the abolishing of the prison system and establishing a system of just restitution. *...

“5. A theonomic approach also forbids the release, pardoning, and paroling of murderers by requiring their execution. ...

“6. It forbids industrial pollution that destroys the value of property. ...

“7. It punishes malicious, frivolous malpractice suits. ...

“8. It forbids abortion rights. ... Abortion is not only a sin, but a crime, and, indeed, a capital crime.”<61>
. . .

* Gary North describes the ‘just restitution’ system of the bible, which happens to reinstitute slavery,
like this:


“At the other end of the curve, the poor man who steals is eventually caught and sold into bondage under a successful person. His victim receives payment; he receives training; his buyer receives a stream of labor services. If the servant is successful and buys his way out of bondage, he re-enters society as a disciplined man, and presumably a self-disciplined man. He begins to accumulate wealth.”...snip