Journal zogger's Journal: "Don't buy any used cars from Lloyd Blankfein" 8
Ha! I thought I was down on our favorite "investment" bank.... Check out Tarpley's rant.
The broader issue raised by today's hearing is: what human purpose is served by the existence of Goldman Sachs, which concocts toxic synthetic CDOs for the purpose of allowing speculators, who are often lied to and duped, to bet for or against them. Goldman Sachs can only be described as a speculative parasite which promotes the activities of other speculative parasites, such as the John Paulson hedge fund at the expense of the public and of its other clients. It was a crime to inject $10 billion of Treasury money into Goldman Sachs. It was another crime for the Fed to lend Goldman untold billions (just how many billions Bernanke still refuses to disclose) to keep them afloat and enable more predatory profits. These crimes must stop, and the public money must be clawed back. Most important, it is time to shut down the derivatives rackets.
More righteous ranting at the link, including an important point I agree with (although on a lot of issues I don't agree with Tarpley)..the tea party folks have been seriously compromised, mind faked, if they think the R party will do anything constructive with this set of events. Just like they equated unlimited campaign donations by corporations to be "free speech" instead of just looking and going "Hey, a bribe"! There will be no "reform" of the R party..or the D party for that matter..ever. Waste of time. The largest most constructive change we could do in the next election is *every* incumbent out, replaced by independents.
... and a collateral question ... (Score:3, Interesting)
The problem is that a lot of them, if you mark them to market, they're bankrupt - but we already knew that. Goldman should be seized, but under RICO, not under bank law.
And the question that all this brings up - since the ratings agencies are deeply complicit in the whole mess, they should also be liquidated. Let investors judge risk themselves, or if they feel that they can't, then get the heck out of the game. If you're sitting at a poker game and you don't see the mark, leave because you're the mark. Same rules.
Good thing you said who he was (Score:1)
All them crazy baldheads look alike to me. I wonder what job they're appointing him too. Assistant to the Assistant Treasury Secretary?
Many years ago (Score:1)
I was taught a simple rule for dealing with investment bankers - Never buy anything they are selling.
Get 'em to do work for you (they do work like crazy) and pay 'em. But if they are selling do not buy.
amen to your conclusion (Score:1)
what human purpose is served by the existence of Goldman Sachs
Prolly none whatsoever, except the jobs they provide. Luckily, we're not quite yet to the (Leftist Progressive ultimate extreme) point of something or someone having to be able to justify its existence to the state based on what it does for society or its "human purpose".
it is time to shut down the derivatives rackets
I would suggest, esp. to those who feel that it doesn't work to ban drug use, that it similarly would be of limited effectiveness t
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The deal is with those guys is they pwnz the Fed and the Treasury. All their execs run those institutions or have heavy influence. It is like the federal ag inspectors who go on to work for monsanto after they "retire", or the drug inspectors go to work for big pharmco, or retired generals go to work for bigwhizzbang co. It's a racket. A ton of our fed policies are made this way, the one step removed bribe/influence peddling. Derviates are just bets, they aren't "products" and shouldn't be covered by tax pa
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The financial industry bailouts were a tricky thing, I'm of the opinion. Banks that even didn't need TARP money were made to take it, supposedly so as to dilute and distribute the bad public perception across many of them, so there wouldn't be runs on them. I don't know enough about it to know why that would necessarily be bad.
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I can attest to this. The large multi-national bank I work for was forced to take TARP funds, even though we didn't want them. At least we were one of the first to pay it back.
That was for obfuscation (Score:1)
That's part of the FOIA action that is going on. The Fed knew this, that a lot of banks were just fine, but they wanted to hide who got the money, so they made most everyone concerned take it. Big time speculation of why they wanted it hidden hinges around two issues, which fatcat connected institutions got the most and the best deals, and how many FOREIGN banks and institutions got US money as well. They wanted to avoid "social unrest" if it came out publicly that they shot hundreds of billions to foreign