I don't recall....

Context of....

Boy, Daniel Sparks is a fucking snake.

Sparks: "I don't recall, selling hundreds of millions of that deal"
Levin: "July 1, 2007; [your email] tells the sales force the top priority is Timberwolf. Your top priority to sell is that shitty deal"
Sparks: "My comment was that I didn't recall the sales."

This is what you get when you deregulate Wallstreet. It's like taking the cage away from a pile of snakes and then acting surprised when you get bit.

And then the snake says: "People trusted me when I said I wasn't a snake. I'm not responsible for them getting bitten...they should know not to trust a snake. Don't put me back in the cage for that."

Well sir, that depends on what the meaning of the word "shitty" is.

If they're going to deregulate then they should just scrub all the fraud laws. Hell why stop at economic relationships, why not de-regulate interpersonal relations too? Murder, rape, et al. Get big government out of my mass grave! Nosy bureaucrats, poking their noses into every little murder.

C'mon Libertarians, isn't that what you want? Don't Tea Partiers want the freedom to shoot illegal immigrants, suspected illegal immigrants (ie brown people) and (on a slow day) a few legal immigrants too?

do these hearings ever lead to people getting indicted? seems more like a trip to the principal's office.

>> ^Golgi:

do these hearings ever lead to people getting indicted? seems more like a trip to the principal's office.


No but they can be used as evidence in court. That is why people take the 5th ammendment.

A soviet-style show trial by no-class thugverment nobodies. Oh well, marxist dopes aren't going to be swayed either by more regs OR less regs.

spank

There's two things that need to be separated here.

The fraud allegation are that Goldman Sachs's employees mislead its client into believing that the hedge fund that arranged certain CDOs for them - Paulson & Co held a long position in the CDO (they expected it to go up in value, obviously a reassurance for the investor), rather that what was really the case - that they were short (expecting it to go down in value).

If this is indeed the case then they will likely be fined and lose some of their prestige and reputation. At best it would have been an overzealous employee, at worst it would be have been a corporate strategy from upper management. Regardless they will be deemed less trustworthy and lose business from potential clients in addition to any fines imposed.

The second point is though, that the idea that this is evidence that they caused this financial crisis is simply ridiculous and anyone who believes this is channeling populist outrage.

Goldman Sachs were not the only ones selling CDOs. The client who bought from Goldman would have likely bought from someone else otherwise if they felt this was an appropriate investment. There was no shortage of financial corporations who would have been willing, and judging by their near collapse, likely would not have had any reservations like the hedge fund that arranged this CDO for Goldman.

http://media.economist.com/images/images-magazine/2010/17/fn/201017fnc367.gif

Yes, Goldman bet against the market and profited handsomely. Had there been more firms betting against the market, it would have kept the prices of houses down, and discouraged further reckless lending and prevented the bubble in the first place. Financial firms profit from the mis-pricing of securities and in acting against them bring the market back to an accurate representation of value preventing such crises. If you want to blame someone, blame the ones who created the boom. Blame the ones who perpetuated the culture of misinformation that house prices would rise indefinitely, that savings rates of around 0% were sustainable. Blame the regulators for not having sufficient safeguards in place and limits to risk taking.

If you want to prevent the next crisis, insist on there being a tax on liabilities (debt) that financial firms take on, to counteract the perception that they are too big to fail and in effect adjust upwards their borrowing costs from unrealistically low rates. Insist on there being a legal procedure to impose orderly losses on shareholders of failing banks, allowing there to be a middlegrounds that hurts investors in these banks as opposed to the option of bailing out the bank and perpetuating too big to fail, or allowing it to collapse and triggering meltdown.

He never defined how "shitty" this deal was. Sorry, but I'm on Goldman's side on this one. Nice political posturing but you get no points on that one.

There's not really any context for that email. Was it a shitty deal for Goldman or for the customer? Or was it being handled shitty?

Not to mention that unless Goldman made fraudulant representations about the securities being sold, then they didn't do anything wrong just because people started defaulting on their mortgages and the investments declined in value.

>> ^quantumushroom:

A soviet-style show trial by no-class thugverment nobodies. Oh well, marxist dopes aren't going to be swayed either by more regs OR less regs.


Keep polishing that turd.

>> ^quantumushroom:

A soviet-style show trial by no-class thugverment nobodies. Oh well, marxist dopes aren't going to be swayed either by more regs OR less regs.


Those look like American style congressional hearings to me. You know we have a long history of that don't you? Or do you think it would help democracy if they were done behind closed doors?

I'd like to argue against your point but I can't figure out what the hell it's supposed to be.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_hearings#Investigative_hearings

>> ^Drachen_Jager:

If they're going to deregulate then they should just scrub all the fraud laws. Hell why stop at economic relationships, why not de-regulate interpersonal relations too? Murder, rape, et al. Get big government out of my mass grave! Nosy bureaucrats, poking their noses into every little murder.
C'mon Libertarians, isn't that what you want? Don't Tea Partiers want the freedom to shoot illegal immigrants, suspected illegal immigrants (ie brown people) and (on a slow day) a few legal immigrants too?


There is so much fail in this post, I don't even know where to begin. First of all, the tea parties were started by libertarians but have since been hijacked by typical party-line neocons. Only a fraction of people there are libertarians.

Second, fraud is illegal and has been for a long time. Misrepresenting a product is fraud, which is exactly what Goldman did. You seem to think libertarians are anarchists who don't want contract laws to penalize fraud and other laws to penalize coercive behavior like murder. You are incorrect, sir.

Concerning regulations, the problem is quite simple:

If the government insures commercial bank deposits, the risk of losing one's deposit is offloaded onto holder's of dollars (mainly foreign central banks now) not involved in the transaction. With depositors having no skin in the game, banks wanting to make risky investments are more easily able to obtain deposits with which to speculate. To prevent that from happening, the banks have to be restricted on what they can do with deposits when they take FDIC.

Glass-Steagall was a 1933 Roosevelt bill that provided FDIC with restrictions. Clinton and most politicians from both parties were heavily lobbied by banks to keep the FDIC but remove the restrictions, and that's exactly what they did with the "Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999". No longer restricted from doing investment banking and unfearful of losing customers on deposit safety concerns, rampant speculation ensued.

Libertarians want FDIC eliminated because offloading risk onto other parties changes human behavior. Greed is normally offset by the fear of loss. When you eliminate the fear, all that's left is the greed and shit happens. We only support Glass-Steagall on the condition that we can't get rid of both FDIC and interest rate price fixing. Understanding now? Good, only 97% of the population left to go.

The only fail here is a failure in BansheeX's sarcasm detector. It's really sad that you cannot tell I was being facetious. You're wasting your time.

Oh and even in jest I didn't say TPers and Libertarians were the same thing. Get your eyes checked (maybe your brain as well while you're at it).

>> ^BansheeX:

>> ^Drachen_Jager:
If they're going to deregulate then they should just scrub all the fraud laws. Hell why stop at economic relationships, why not de-regulate interpersonal relations too? Murder, rape, et al. Get big government out of my mass grave! Nosy bureaucrats, poking their noses into every little murder.
C'mon Libertarians, isn't that what you want? Don't Tea Partiers want the freedom to shoot illegal immigrants, suspected illegal immigrants (ie brown people) and (on a slow day) a few legal immigrants too?

There is so much fail in this post, I don't even know where to begin. First of all, the tea parties were started by libertarians but have since been hijacked by typical party-line neocons. Only a fraction of people there are libertarians.
Second, fraud is illegal and has been for a long time. Misrepresenting a product is fraud, which is exactly what Goldman did. You seem to think libertarians are anarchists who don't want contract laws to penalize fraud and other laws to penalize coercive behavior like murder. You are incorrect, sir.
Concerning regulations, the problem is quite simple:
If the government insures commercial bank deposits, the risk of losing one's deposit is offloaded onto holder's of dollars (mainly foreign central banks now) not involved in the transaction. With depositors having no skin in the game, banks wanting to make risky investments are more easily able to obtain deposits with which to speculate. To prevent that from happening, the banks have to be restricted on what they can do with deposits when they take FDIC.
Glass-Steagall was a 1933 Roosevelt bill that provided FDIC with restrictions. Clinton and most politicians from both parties were heavily lobbied by banks to keep the FDIC but remove the restrictions, and that's exactly what they did with the "Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999". No longer restricted from doing investment banking and unfearful of losing customers on deposit safety concerns, the inevitable happened.
Libertarians want FDIC eliminated because offloading risk onto other parties changes human behavior. Greed is normally offset by the fear of loss. When you eliminate the fear, all that's left is the greed and shit happens. We only support Glass-Steagall on the condition that we can't get rid of FDIC. Understanding now? Good, only 97% of the population left to go.

Surprised he didn't get dizzy from all the circles.

Libertarians are anarchists who want everyone else bound by laws.

>> ^Drachen_Jager:

The only fail here is a failure in BansheeX's sarcasm detector. It's really sad that you cannot tell I was being facetious. You're wasting your time.
Oh and even in jest I didn't say TPers and Libertarians were the same thing. Get your eyes checked (maybe your brain as well while you're at it).

It's really sad that you think you sounded facetious.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'senator levin, wall street, goldman sachs, corruption, fraud' to 'senator levin, wall street, goldman sachs, corruption, fraud, shitty, deal' - edited by lucky760