Goldman Sachs and the Law

Let's assume, just for the sake of argument, that Goldman Sachs is a criminal enterprise. Let's assume that they have illegally manipulated markets. Let's assume that they have used secret currency swaps to hide Greek debt. Let's assume that they then shorted Greek debt to profit from their insider knowledge of those secrets. Let's even assume that Goldman Sachs employees are arming themselves like they were Bugsy Siegel.

Let's assume, just for the sake of argument mind you, that Goldman Sachs is a criminal cartel so massive they make the Mafia look like a street corner pot dealer. What law could possible bring them to justice?

In the United States Goldman Sachs owns the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve. They have successfully infiltrated the top echelons of government. Quite literally, Goldman Sachs owns the cops on the beat.

How about the European Union? Couldn't they do something? There is talk of banning Goldman from working in Europe. However, the Euro is in danger of collapsing and Goldman might threaten worse if they are banned. Think of it as a horse's head in the bed.

We talk about banks that are To Big To Fail. Goldman Sachs is a bank that is To Big To Control. Of course, this is all just wild speculation. Goldman Sachs is really just a puppy dog, Ben Bernanke tells me so.

Not Goldman Sachs business attire.

Masters of Evil

If only half of what Matt Taibbi writes in Rolling Stone is true, than Goldman Sachs is every great global conspiracy theory combined, with offices in New Jersey. They are the rumored Illuminati made flesh. They employ Fu Manchu, Professor Moriarty, and Ernest Blofeld in middle management positions. Hanibal Lecter is the corporate caterer. I wouldn't be surprised if you look at Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein with unprotected eyes you will instantly turn both blind and insane.

I've commented before about Goldman Sachs and continue to believe that company is a great threat to President Obama. I've calling them devils and I do believe that Goldman Sachs is a criminal cancer with grasping invasive tentacles in the governments of every major economic nation on Earth, most especially the United States Treasury Department. Goldman Sachs in not above the law, they are the law. When it comes to investment banking Goldman Sachs controls both the writing and enforcement of the law.

As conspiracy theories go, this has something for everyone. For radical conservatives it allows them to indulge their Jewish Conspiracy worldview without being obviously anti-Semitic. Radical liberals (like me) see it falling neatly into our belief that unbridled capitalism allows criminals to rule.

A few more links: More Matt Taibbi, Goldman Sachs Responds, Eight Cases for a Goldman Conspiracy, a Manifesto titled "Goldman Sachs: The Real Conspiracy - Looking Behind The Curtain."

The Usual Disclaimer: Goldman Sachs attorneys need be aware that I continue to worship at the altar I have built to your company. Just last night I sacrificed an unwilling virgin (see photo below). By the way, do you know just how hard it is to find virgins these days? So, cut me a little slack, will ya Beelzebub?

Bargaining With the Devils at Goldman

There is something evil lurking in the executive suites of that building. Something like in the movie Devil's Advocate only a banker not a lawyer, which makes it even worse. That is the Goldman Sachs Tower in Jersey City, by the way.

If anything is going to destroy Barack Obama in the future it is going to be the way that Goldman Sachs has infused itself into every aspect of the economic recovery program, usually in ways that are devious and designed to benefit that one bank ahead of everyone else, including the nation. This is the kind of thing that has a habit of blowing up.

• The AIG bailout was mainly designed to benefit Goldman.
• Goldman wants to repay its TARP bailout money. A skeptic would note they can use their bailout money laundered through AIG to do that.
  
• Everywhere you turn in Washington you find Treasury officials with deep ties to Goldman.
  
• The most egregious example is New York Fed Chairman Stephen Friedman, who sits on the board of directors of Goldman, was buying Goldman stock at the same time the Fed was sending the company billions of dollars of bailout capital. Lesser mortals might call that insider trading. I would never accuse Friedman or Goldman of anything illegal because...
• It appears some guy is facing legal problems for critizing Goldman.
  

There is something very wrong at Goldman Sachs. President Obama needs to erect a firewall between his administration and that company before it is too late.

(P.S. - As a notice to Goldman Sachs' team of highly paid lawyers, I really love Goldman Sachs. I am building an altar to them and will be sacrificing small furry animals, perhaps even drinking the still warm blood of virgins, to placate his terrible visage. Of my own free will, I now acknowledge Your power.)

Is AIG an International Criminal Conspiracy?

Evidence in support of this hypothesis.

1. AIGFP has a rap sheet. In 2004, AIG paid over $240 million in restitution, disgorgement, and penalties for the fraudulant actions of AIGFP-PAGIC.
   
2. AIG has an extensive rap sheet including convictions for criminal fraud.
3. AIG's criminal fraud activities extends beyond the United States.
4. The AIG-Goldman Sachs connection implies a deep-seated conspiracy. Goldman Sachs got the lions share of the AIG bailout ($12.9 billion). See also Scott Reaves. John Carney of Business Insider wonders about the Goldman-AIG dance.
   
5. Goldman Sachs employees form a powerful cadre. Bush's Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson was the former CEO of Goldman Sachs; World Bank president Robert Zoellick was a managing director; TARP head Neel Kashkari was a Goldman vice-president; George Herbert Walker IV is a current Goldman managing director. Current Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has a cozy relationship with Goldman. And I almost missed one - Edward Liddy, the CEO of AIG, came to the company from the Board of Directors of Goldman Sachs.
   
6. The White Paper (pdf) AIG issued over the issue of bonuses to AIGFP crooks, when you strip out the lawyerese, is good old-fashioned extortion. AIG threatens that if the bonuses are withheld then $1.2 tillion will disappear in a wiff of smoke. It seems that only the AIGFP 400 know where and how the money is buried and those crooks have to be kept happy or they won't be able to find it.
   

A Goldman Sachs Christmas

It seems that Goldmans Sachs is having "secret Christmas parties" this year. Their PR is that these "parties" are just morale boosters for employees who might be a tad misunderstood what with people believing that baby eating and widow torturing is somehow evil.

Those of us in the know understand that Christmas is an important time for celebrating Black Masses. We can all be certain that the sacrifices made to Beelzebub this holiday season will insure another banner year of profits for the Goldman Sachs family.

Pictured: The Goldman Sachs Family

Standard Disclaimer to Goldman Sachs lawyers: I love Goldman Sachs and worship nightly at an altar to its malefic. Please don't sue me.

Charges Against Goldman!!!

How Dare They!!! How dare the SEC file fraud charges against Goldman Sachs!!!!

Of course they did it. Of course Goldman sold securities that they believed would fail. In fact were so certain they would fail they bought those self same securities short. I mean, that's like saying water is wet. Why, if that was the only fraud they committed they would qualify for sainthood in the community of investment bankers.

But the gall of actually filing a civil suit against the Great Goldman Sachs. Is nothing sacred? (Actually, the appropriate question here is...) Is nothing profane?

Still, I have unbridled faith in the evil that is Goldman Sachs. They will never pay a penny on this suit. Their lawyers are too good; most have graduated from universities in the 7th level of Hell. The lawsuit probably won't even come to trial until sometime in the 23rd century.

Goldman Sachs lawyers in conference.

Standard Disclaimer: The wondrous evil that is Goldman Sachs deserves daily worship. Please don't sue me.

The Rape of Persephone

Dear old Goldman Sachs is at it again. They are destroying another country's economy, perhaps an entire continent, because, aw heck, it's just so much fun.

As is the Devil's practice, Goldman seduced the Greek government into sin. By devising ways for Greece to hide its national debt Goldman led Greece to its fall and to an economic crisis that may bring down the entire European Union. And Goldman Sachs profited mightily from it.

It's a story as old as Greek mythology. A powerful and lustful god kidnaps and rapes an innocent girl. Who is more powerful, more godlike, in today's world than that ruler of the Underworld, Goldman Sachs?

Statue is The Rape of Persephone by Bernini.

Standard Disclaimer to Goldman Sachs lawyers: My worship of Goldman Sachs' malevolent mastery continues to grow. Forget the altar, I'm going to build an entire temple. Please don't sue me.

The Devil's Minion

When the credit-default swaps shit hit the fan a couple of years ago the Devil's own investment bank, Goldman Sachs, had a problem. They had insured their insane investments through AIG using their insane investments a collateral and AIG was busted.

If the natural course of free enterprise was followed then Goldman Sachs would have had to write off their bad debts and all of their executives that had come to expect massive Christmas bonuses as well as those elaborate parties where the still warm blood of virgins was drunk would have had to tighten their belts for a season or two.

Fortunately for Goldman Sachs they had an obsequious minion named Timothy Geithner at the New York Federal Reserve Bank. The Fed put up the money so virgin blood could continue to flow and conspired with AIG to cover up the transactions because satanic covens are best held in secret.

Standard Disclaimer: Goldman Sachs is the most wonderful, most perfect company in history. I worship Goldman Sachs as I would only the greatest demon spawn of Hell.

Trouble in Tartarus

Could it be that Satan's Domain on Earth (Goldman Sachs) is in trouble? A Justice Department probe into insider trading appears to have caught Goldman Sachs in its net.

Could this begin the grand battle between good and evil - Christian versus Apollyon, Beowulf versus Grindel, the Thundercats versus Mumm-Ra? Probably not.

This isn't the first time that the Justice Department had Goldman Sachs by the short hairs. Last spring they had the Devil's Bank dead to rights for fraud over mortgage securities deals. If Justice had any fight in it several Goldman execs would have been looking forward to a few years of prison romance. Instead Goldman's punishment was a half-billion dollar fine (just a fraction (4%) of Goldman's take from the government AIG bailout) and a tepid mea culpa.

Atrios predicts, and I agree, that the worst Goldman will face from Justice this time will be a tiny fine. Goldman is just too powerful for the Justice Department. (think Doomsday versus Jimmy Olsen).

Standard Disclaimer: The wondrous evil that is Goldman Sachs deserves daily worship. Please don't sue me.

On Tartarus. 

Art is Tartarus by Charles Katz

The Devil's Dues Are High

While the world suffers Goldman Sachs continues to have win-win deals so sweet they resemble Satanic orgies. If CIT Group goes bankrupt Goldman is guaranteed $1 billion while everyone else gets the shaft. The US taxpayer, for example, stands to lose $2.3 billion in a CIT Group bankruptcy. CIT Group is neck deep in shit, their operating margin, for example is -427%.

Pictured is either a Goldman Sachs board of directors meeting or a black mass, it's hard to tell them apart. More on Goldman's Devil deals here and here.

Standard Disclaimer to Goldman Sachs lawyers: I love Goldman Sachs and continue worship nightly to its Splendiferousness. Please don't sue me.

Senate Takes on Goldman Sachs

Not all the gold, that is beneath the moon,
Or ever hath been, of these toil-worn souls
Might purchase rest for one. ~ Dante's Inferno

The fourth circle of Hell is for those guilty of greed.

Nothing will come of the charges that Goldman Sachs lied to investors with the purpose of defrauding them. There will be no prosecutions, no business will avoid dealing with Goldman, no country will disengage their economy from this master of evil. There is no mortal on earth brave enough to stand against the Devil.

As Forbes points out, "the entire fabric of the global financial system would be threatened" by any effort to make Goldman Sachs conform to the rule of law or standards of human decency

Such is the power of the Prince of Darkness.

Goldman CEO at Senate hearing.

Standard Disclaimer: The wondrous evil that is Goldman Sachs deserves daily worship. Please don't sue me.

Art by Paul Haas.

Outrage Overload

So much news, my rage gland is over-expressed.

Goldman Sachs - the Evil of Evils

Goldman Sachs, the Devil's Banker, made the tiny mistake of letting a man with the tiniest whiff of human decency into their desecrated caverns. He has revealed that the corporate culture is to screw everybody for profit and screw their customers hardest. Goldman's opinion of their customers would have to improve for them to be considered suckers. They view their clients as somewhere between hapless clowns and fatted calves. It is beyond my understanding why anyone would entrust their money, their investments, or their IPO to the scavengers at Goldman Sachs.

BofA Is No Better

If Goldman Sachs is Satan, then Bank of America is Lucifer. Just as greedy, just as rapacious, just as evil, just not as good at it. Matt Taibbi, the only real journalist in the Western Hemisphere, lists the various crimes that Bank of America commits with the gentle charm of a schoolyard bully on crank.

Why anyone would trust their money, investment capital, or sacred honor to either bank is a mystery.


GOP Like the Violence Part

Republicans take pains to point out they don't oppose the whole thing, they like the "against women" part of the Violence Against Women Act. They also like the "violence" part, it's just the "act" part that enrages them. They realize it doesn't look good, favoring violence against women, but there is a greater political principle involved. Women are just getting to uppity.

Afghanistan Forever

There was a time when the Afghan War made sense back when the goal was to crush al-Qaeda, drive the Taliban from power, and take some understandable vengeance for the crimes committed against us. But that was a decade ago. Now, there is no earthly reason to stay. We should leave with a few parting instructions. If the Taliban regains power we shall cut off all aid and keep a watchful eye on them. Should al-Qaeda return we will destroy them and any innocent unfortunate enough to be close. Other than that, they are on their own and good luck.

Goldman Sachs Gun Culture

Goldman employees are stocking up on the artillery.

I can think of so many ways this is going to end very badly. Goldman Sachs employees are amoral pricks to begin with. Amoral pricks with guns become amoral bastards.

• Super paranoid people tend to shoot innocent folk
• High stress + gun + petty argument at home = slaughter
• Wall Street players tend to keep mistresses; wives tend to shoot mistresses
• Mistresses sometimes kill their lovers
  
• Market crash + gun = massacre
• Or maybe just suicide

Guys, there is a reason you were not allowed to carry guns in Hell. Being pure evil is a stressful and dangerous profession as it is, don't compound it by carrying a 45.

Standard Disclaimer to Goldman Sachs lawyers: I worship Goldman Sachs and pray to it nightly. Please don't sue me. Or shoot me.

The Devil Gets His Dues

Goldman Sachs' manipulation of the TARP has paid off big. Employees can expect the largest bonuses in company history as the company has accumulated massive profits from the global economic collapse. It's sweet to work at a company which has the entire United States Treasury Department in its back pocket.

See also Bargaining With the Devils at Goldman. Hat tip to Booman Tribune.

Standard Disclaimer to Goldman Sachs lawyers: I love Goldman Sachs and worship nightly at an altar (seen below) to its greatness. Please don't sue me.

Don't Make Satan Angry

Two Goldman Sachs posts in two days. Talk about tempting the devil.

These people are really tempting The Evil One by filing lawsuits against Goldman and its CEO Lloyd Blankfein. Of course they "wholly abdicated their fiduciary duty." That's like saying kittens breath.

Not the Goldman Sachs CEO.

It's what they do and they did it with a song in their hearts. The question is not whether or not Blankfein cheated his shareholders. He cheats the Feds, why should he balk at stealing from shareholders? The question is what will Blankfein do if he becomes angry.

Possible view of Goldman Sachs CEO
testifying before Congress.

Justifying Crooked Behavior

CNN had a mini-debate between Matt Taibbi, our generation's greatest journalist, and Megan McArdle (watch it here).

McArdle was recently hired as Atlantic's business and economics editor, meaning she is a former C-list journalist who considers her job to be getting invited to B-list cocktail parties. Which means her journalistic activities consists mostly of trying to ass kiss the people who make out the guest lists. (She will never be A-list, but she's trying.)

In that mini-debate McArdle makes the most coherent, although not at all cogent, defense of Goldman Sachs' crooked behavior. Her argument is that Goldman had every right to misrepresent the fact they were betting against products they were selling because Goldman is not in business to make money for anyone else, just for themselves.

Forgive me for being naive, but I thought an investment banker's job was to help his clients to avoid unsound investments, not deliberately selling shit on the theory that if the client is too stupid to recognize shit he deserves to be taken. Morally and ethically (and legally), bankers have a responsibility to act in good faith in the best interests of their clients and not act as high priced Thimblerigs.

 Still, the fact that businesses, hedge funds, and governments still hire Goldman Sachs even knowing who they are is proof that P. T. Barnum was right and the nation is adding a half-million new suckers every year.

Goldman and Republicans

"The Party of No" boxed itself in on the financial reform issue. Democrats suggested reforms. Republicans reflexively oppose them. With that stage set the SEC filed civil charges against Goldman Sachs and Republicans are locked in firmly with a defense of corrupt practices platform. To defeat Financial Reform Republicans are going to have to take sides with corporate criminals - and do it in an election year.

Conservative troglodytes were surprised. This is because they consider campaign contributions to be political bribes (they are) and because Goldman Sachs employees donated to the Obama campaign they thought it should have immunized them against any legal action.

This is stunning. Let’s not forget that Goldman was a top donor to Obama in 2008. ~ Erick Erickson

Republicans believe political bribes are sacrosanct, a bond never to be broken. Democrats, occasionally, are still determined to do the right thing.

Republican corporate bribers expect the party to go to the wall in defense of financial thievery. The Tea Party activists expect the party to take the populist stance against banking fat cats getting Federal bailouts. The Republican Party can't do both.

In the end Republicans will follow the money and side with Wall Street to kill reform. They will then throw some meaningless over the top rhetoric at the Tea Partiers and hope that sates them.

Grecian Formula

Lest we forget: The riots in Athens, the turmoil in European financial markets, and plunging stock exchanges worldwide were all caused by Goldman Sachs who, finding themselves with insider knowledge of Greece's shaky finances (because Goldman crafted the cover-up scheme) couldn't help but profit from Greece's misfortune. The worse things are for Greece the more money Goldman Sachs makes. It's called business.

After Wolfowitz, Who?

George Bush has made it his habit and practice to nominate clowns and imbeciles whenever he has the opportunity. Not going too deeply in the the reasons for this (when you are fatuous moron, imbeciles stike you as highly intelligent), let's look where the names being floated to replace Wolfowitz as head of the World Bank rank on the Competence Scale. (0=Paul Wolfowitz; 100=James Wolfensohn, his esteemed two-term predecessor)

Robert Kimmitt ~ 5
Most frequently mentioned in the speculation game. A party hack who has bounced around the Treasury and State departments when Republicans were in power, and bounced around the private sector as a powerless figurehead when Democrats were in power. He spent three years in middle management at Lehman Brothers so he probably knows some financial jargon, and he was on a World Bank Panel of Arbitrators so he may remember where the offices are.

Robert Zoellick ~ 15
Marginally qualified. He was the United States Trade Rep for several years and was hired by Goldman Sachs to head their International Advisors department. Zoellick is also a neo-conservative and philosophical clone of Wolfowitz. He would bring the same idological baggage as Wolfowitz with a modicum of actual financial experience.

Henry Paulson ~ 80
Over 30 years at Goldman Sachs, his last five as their CEO. Previously a member of the International Monetary Fund's Board of Directors. Currently is the Treasury Secretary. Paulson has actually run an investment firm the size of the World Bank. Paulson head the selection process to replace Wolfowitz. He would make an excellent choice, which is why I doubt he will be picked.

Stanley Fischer ~ 75
Formerly a Vice-Chairman at Citigroup, a Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund and the Chief Economist at the World Bank. Currently Governor of the Bank of Israel. Another excellent choice.

Paul Volcker ~ 60
Highly qualified. Besides being a former President of the Federal Reserve he was chairman of Wolfensohn & Co., the investment firm of the esteemed former World Bank president. His only negative is that Volcker is now 79 years-old.

Bill Frist ~ 0
Richard Lugar ~ 0
Jim Leach ~ 0
Three politicans, two of them unemployed politicans. None of them has a single qualification to run an international investment bank.

My guess - if Bush has his way he will appoint Zoellick, if Paulson has his way the appointment will go to Fischer. If Bush wants to send a great big "Fuck You" to the World Bank, he will choose Bill Frist.

Revealing the Number of the Beast

Goldman Sachs by the numbers:

• $8 billion - from the Federal Government due to the AIG bailout.
• $16 billion - Bonuses to top executives.
• $1 million - Donation to Haiti relief.
• $1 million (less $6,000) - Donations to Barack Obama, 2008.
• $6 million - All political donations, 2008.
• 133333% - Return on investment - $6 million invested versus $8 billion bailout.

Standard Disclaimer: The wondrous evil that is Goldman Sachs deserves daily worship. Please don't sue me.