04.14.11
Goldman Sachs cursed in Senate, Blankfein still on the loose
In the most damning official U.S. report yet produced on Wall Street’s role in the financial crisis, a Senate panel accused powerhouse Goldman Sachs of misleading clients and manipulating markets, while also condemning greed, weak regulation and conflicts of interest throughout the financial system.
Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, one of Capitol Hill’s most feared panels, has a history with Goldman Sachs.
He clashed publicly with its Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein a year ago at a hearing on the crisis.
The Democratic lawmaker again tore into Goldman at a press briefing on his panel’s 639-page report, which is based on a review of tens of millions of documents over two year
In the most damning official U.S. report yet produced on Wall Street’s role in the financial crisis, a Senate panel accused powerhouse Goldman Sachs of misleading clients and manipulating markets, while also condemning greed, weak regulation and conflicts of interest throughout the financial system.
After a two-year bipartisan probe, a Senate panel has concluded that Goldman Sachs Group Inc. profited from the financial crisis by betting billions against the subprime mortgage market, then deceived investors and Congress about the firm’s conduct.
Some of the findings in the report by the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations will be referred to the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission for possible criminal or civil action, said Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the panel’s chairman.
“In my judgment, Goldman clearly misled their clients and they misled the Congress,” Levin told reporters before the report was made public late Wednesday.
[Levin]He clashed publicly with [Goldman] Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein a year ago at a hearing on the crisis.
The Democratic lawmaker again tore into Goldman at a press briefing on his panel’s 639-page report, which is based on a review of tens of millions of documents over two year
Tune in tomorrow, same time, for the sound of — crickets.
The masters of the universe know they can ignore reports and days like this one.
From another finance story:
“This is not some evil conspiracy of two guys sitting in a room saying we should let people create crony capitalism and steal with impunity,??? said William K. Black, a professor of law at University of Missouri, Kansas City, and the federal government’s director of litigation during the savings and loan crisis. “But their policies have created an exceptional criminogenic environment. There were no criminal referrals from the regulators. No fraud working groups. No national task force. There has been no effective punishment of the elites here.???
Criminogenic environment. Two words where one will do: kleptocracy.
I wrote a song about this a couple months ago, Let’s Lynch Lloyd Blankfein. Catchy it was, too.
Protest music from the left, even satirical material, however, is totally dead in the US. You can comb the annals of music journalism for the last three years and you’ll find nothing on the subject. Zero.
Anyway, Let’s Lynch Lloyd Blankfein, which also needs a video, is here.
If you don’t want to listen to the tune, listen to the intro which is taken from a Charlie Rose interview of Blankfein. The discussion is about the very thing again in the news today, that Goldman benefited from the financial crisis by pushing and selling financial products it was simultaneously betting against.
“I have to explain …” the man said. He was doing God’s work.