the only thing the SEC has ever done hard and fast is gotten lambasted on national TV by the government. Both sides are chock full of lawyers.
SEC is a joke. It is sole responsibilities is to oversee security markets and they get a big fat F for their job.
HighYielder Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > the only thing the SEC has ever done hard and fast > is gotten lambasted on national TV by the > government. Both sides are chock full of lawyers. Lehman had lawyers, Merrill had lawyers, WaMu had lawyers. Different situations i know but lawyers??! against the government? please This is not a one shot SEC operation. This is the first steps of a bigger plan, Lehman executives must be shttin their pants now.
comp_sci_kid Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > mo34 Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > comp_sci_kid Wrote: > > > -------------------------------------------------- > > > ----- > > > And… itstoohot… AND??? As i am saying if > > > portfolio WOULDNT be hand picked by Paulson, > > > losses would still be there… yes GS is at > > > fault, but don’t blame it for losing your > > money. > > > > > > “Losses” would have been there, but not > > “catastrophic losses” that can drive banks and > > investors out of business. > > > > The 99% number is huge. I am sure as they dig > > deeper they will find that even the individual > > mortgages where probably hand picked ( think > > Riverside, CA or in Florida somewhere) to > maximize > > the probability of a downgrade. > > As i said, it is clearly a misrepresentation, but, > i would charge SEC with Civil suite, for failure > to recognize housing issue and failure to regulate > it… but wait… lets blame it all on bankers, > how convinient What does this mean? Charge the SEC with a civil suit for failure to recognize the housing issue? Huh? As in drapes matching carpets? The SEC has no regulatory authority over housing or banking, only the financial markets. FDIC, FED, OTS, OCC, Justice Dept all have certain jurisdictions over the housing market, not the SEC.
comp_sci_kid Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > itstoohot Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > HighYielder Wrote: > > > -------------------------------------------------- > > > ----- > > > this is going to take years to play out. GS > > will > > > fight the SEC in court for their suit and > > > depending on the outcome will be in court for > > > years facing several class-action lawsuits > from > > > the investors. By the time there is a > > resolution > > > on this people will no longer care and will > > have > > > moved on to chasing some other bubble. > > > > it won’t take years, they gonna do it hard and > > fast. Goldman is fuccked if you still can’t see > > it. > > > > btw how can I buy puts on john paulson’s > > reputation? > > If it happens, this will be the worst thing that > happened to US Capital Markets. Take a look at > what happened in Russia with YUKOS… and draw > parallels. There is no comparison between Russia and the US. In Russia, the dictator controls the judiciary, the media, the parliament, bla bla. It’s easy for him to take over a company’s assets with some false claims of tax frauds. That’s not the case here. No disrespect , but Russia is a third world country when it comes to individual rights, political system, …
itstoohot Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > HighYielder Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > the only thing the SEC has ever done hard and > fast > > is gotten lambasted on national TV by the > > government. Both sides are chock full of > lawyers. > > Lehman had lawyers, Merrill had lawyers, WaMu had > lawyers. Different situations i know but > lawyers??! against the government? please > > This is not a one shot SEC operation. This is the > first steps of a bigger plan, Lehman executives > must be shttin their pants now. I’m not defending GS - I fully believe they had huge culpability here. But I think it is crazy to think that this is going to be some swift operation. You are talking about a government agency that had Madoff handed to them drawn and quartered for 10 years and never did anything until he basically turned himself in. That was a $55 billion fraud.
HighYielder Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > itstoohot Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > HighYielder Wrote: > > > -------------------------------------------------- > > > ----- > > > the only thing the SEC has ever done hard and > > fast > > > is gotten lambasted on national TV by the > > > government. Both sides are chock full of > > lawyers. > > > > Lehman had lawyers, Merrill had lawyers, WaMu > had > > lawyers. Different situations i know but > > lawyers??! against the government? please > > > > This is not a one shot SEC operation. This is > the > > first steps of a bigger plan, Lehman executives > > must be shttin their pants now. > > I’m not defending GS - I fully believe they had > huge culpability here. But I think it is crazy to > think that this is going to be some swift > operation. You are talking about a government > agency that had Madoff handed to them drawn and > quartered for 10 years and never did anything > until he basically turned himself in. That was a > $55 billion fraud. HY, I’m not defending SEC either. Madoff was so yesterday. I’m not a legal expert but we will see more cases like this next couple of months and SEC would want to set a precedent with this case. SEC has been collecting more evidence. I still strongly believe these are the first steps of a bigger plan. Banks lost billions of dollars and no one has been charged yet. wtf?!
Here’s the complaint at the SEC site: http://www.sec.gov/litigation/complaints/2010/comp-pr2010-59.pdf
Goldman probably sold insurance via CDS to Paulson, then bought insurance via CDS from AIG or someother party on the same tranches. I have to imagine they were perfectly hedged. They are not that stupid.
Every major news websit is either headlining this or its somewhere in the top paragraphs. Guess which one is still having tea parties and not even referencing it?
this too shall pass
BizBanker, can you make one ****ing post without turn something into a partisan debate? If you want to play that game fine: President Obama’s second largest contributor from his 2008 preseidential camapaign has been charged with fraud. That’s right, Goldman Sachs who donated $994,795 to Obama in 2008 has been charged with fraud. One can only wonder if SEC will file suits against Obama’s 6th largest donor (Citi for $701,290), 7th largest (JP Morgan for $695,132), 12th (UBS for $543,219), or 17th (Morgan Stanley for $514,881). I guess we really know who is in Wall Street’s corner. All of the donations listed above are higher than McCain’s highest contribution.
Wasnt a partisan debate genius, simply a statement about the lack of information for certain groups of people and the reason behind the lack of knowledge that the general public has about actual events in general, and economics specifically. Yeah, he did get a ton of contributions from GS, but was he any where near the steering wheel when these deals were being made? Or was his Treasury Sec. the ex CEO of Goldman? Its hard to see these contributions as a bribe when the offenses were happening before he had a chance to affect them, but rather a vote of confidence in his ability to get us out of a recession faster than the “cut taxes” policy. Actually 2/3s of people with a net worth over 10M supported BO. Since you made it partisan. Did you say the same thing when Enron was screwing CA with their man in the WH?
I was pretty happy with the response to Enron. Some people did jail time. Led to passage of SOX (which the biggest criticism is that it requires firms to do too much and is too costly for firms to stay in compliance with). Arthur Anderson also was dissolved for their part. Real reforms were made. It has yet to be seen what reforms will come from the crisis. I would rather not turn this into a political debate and I never said the big bank’s bribed Obama. I just listed his biggest contributors which was a statement of fact. Those were legal and public donations to his campaign, and were not bribes. I hope anyone who acted fradulently on Wall Street gets whats coming to them. They cost investors billions of dollars and they deserve to pay the price. And for the record, I don’t see what Fox News has to do with this.
Sweep the Leg ChuckRox BizBanker I am not disputing the fact that Paulson’s organization made a good deal of money for his clients, however, his involvement in this isn’t a positive development. I’m also thinking about this from the perspective of his capital providers, most of which are either Fund of Funds or large endowments and pension funds. FoF’s for sure will or already have begun withdrawing capital for the following reasons: -Size of the fund in relation to the strategy -Tremendous growth of the fund (will the firm’s infrastructure - including analyst strength - be able to support this growth) -Departure of Paola Plligrini (old news but still critical) -Credit / macro isn’t Paulson’s bread and butter. He is a merger arb guy! -REPUTATION: no one wants to touch this – FoFs rountinely receive inquiries every time one of their managers is in the news. Anything resembling improper behavior = no good -FoF’s are still reeling from Madoff and are assuming an extremely defensive posture -NO ONE WANTS TO BE LAST IN LINE. If just one large client submits a full redemption, expect the entire lot to. Remaining clients have similar doubts, so this may be the straw that breaks the camels back. Not saying that he will close shop – but there will be significant capital outflows.
My point about FN is that when such a large development in the financial markets happens, like this one I believe is large, people who might benefit from having the knowledge are coddled along with their worldview and given misdirection to help them along their uninformed paths. When the financial crisis started, you had FN talking heads blaming CRA, Fannie/Freddie, dems, everyone but those who were elected to protect us from this type of fraud. It isnt a partisan debate, its a debate of philosophy. I believe that govt can serve good in protecting our property rights as well as civil rights. And in this case, they did not protect property rights but allowed a system to continue that started with fraud at the consumer level, and ended with fraud back to the pension funds who bought this stuff, to enrich those who were in on the fraud. Look up what David Frum said that got him fired from American Enterprise Institute. He said that while conservative thought FN worked for them, they in fact worked for FN and wrecked their chances of being involved in some compromise of major legislation.
I wonder if the top execs will go to Jail for this…they should but it won’t happen. Fines are completely useless - that is just a cost of doing business for the scvmbags. Only hard time with bubba as a cellmate will prevent this from happening in the future.
Toke a J, go to jail, rip off billions of dollars, retire. Great set of priorities we have.
I wouldn’t say fines are “completely useless”. Look up what happened to Drexel in the late 80’s. SEC hit them with some big fines and they became so weakened by it, they basically could no longer compete and had to sell off. At that time they were the 5th largest investment bank. In 2008, SEC set a precedent with Citi on a CDO it sold. It made them purchase it back at par value from the investors. If the SEC did that to Goldman, it would have to cough up about $1Billion to the original investors. If two or three more of these fraud suits pop up, those fines would run Goldman out of business. Won’t happen, but it would be nice.
And what would buffet be thinking with 5 bill in Preferred and warrants at 115 ?