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JackNesbitt 05/03/2010 07:44 AM Report
Dear Sir,
The Goldman representatives who testified this week before the Levin Committee were a singularly unimpressive bunch—including the Chm/CEO! From my time in Corporate Finance sector of the Financial Services industry, I worked with and met many more impressive people than the arrogant, condescending, and evasive bores who testified in the US Senate this week. Mediocracy ran deep in that group --from Messrs Sparks, Birbaum, Swenson, Viniar, Broderick and Blankfein through to even the “Fabulous Fab” (however, at least the “Fabulous Fab” had a bit of panache and flair and humility).
Goldman has positioned itself --a claim promulgated by its own external publicity machine and the Business Schools they recruit at, by the way --as a selective organization who prides itself on its recruiting prowess and its exclusivity. In other words, Goldman sold the financial public on the notion that it selectively recruits “Masters of the Universe”. The Goldman individuals I saw last Tuesday were about as far from Masters of the Universe as you can get—including Mr. Blankfein. (Consider the absurd statement that even Mr. Blankfein made regarding his ignorance about what rated tier of investments (AAA or whatever) certain pension funds, school districts, and foundations could buy for their own portfolios.)
In a word, then, I do not know how some or maybe all of the above-mentioned individuals ever got through their first interviews on campus or the Recruiting doors at Goldman (in the US or the UK) or even got promoted to the next level. I would not hire anyone of them for even a dogcatcher position except for maybe the “Fabulous Fab” who might be good with customers and new business.
Jack Nesbitt, MBA and Recruiter
& former Corporate Finance Associate, First Chicago Capital Markets, Chicago, IL
Welwyn, Herts, England, UK and Jacksonville, Fla, USA
Ricardo_Amaral 04/30/2010 09:57 PM Report
For all practical purposes the party is over for “Goldman Sachs The Pillage People.”
And I don’t believe those people who are saying that Goldman Sachs the Pillage People has some unique businesses that Wall Street would not be able to do without it.
We know that when “Goldman Sachs the Pillage People” finally implodes and goes out of business like Lehman Brothers, that there will be many people trying to get a piece of the action of what is left of any value from the carcass of “Goldman Sachs the Pillage People.”
.
Ricardo_Amaral 04/30/2010 09:46 PM Report
It seems that for now all the smart money will be selling short the “Goldman Sachs the Pillage People” stock.
For the United States to restore some of its credibility on Wall Street and its financial markets then they have to show to the world that they are trying to clean Wall Street of the biggest scoundrels to run the show in Wall Street in decades.
A band-aid will not do at this time when you are dealing with cancer here – in this case we need critical surgery to save Wall Street.
Most of the major financial newspapers, and magazines are going easy on Goldman Sachs the Pillage People – and I can understand why they are doing that since many of these publications are just trying to pay back to the Pillage People for past information and some kind of scoop – and they are also hedging their bets just in case.
Anything that I have been reading in Barons, Bloomberg/Business Week, and so forth I am reading their material with a grain of salt, since I understand the game that they are all playing.
Right now, “Goldman Sachs the Pillage People” is working overtime and bringing from the woodwork anyone with some influence to help its massive PR job in trying to turn this situation around.
If anyone that values his reputation it does not distance himself from “Goldman Sachs the Pillage People” ASAP, then that person or organization it is a big fool.
The one thing that I like to know from the mainstream media is how much money each senator, and congressman has received in contributions from Goldman Sachs the Pillage People in the last few years – going back 5 years is good enough, since that would you give a general idea about which politicians are on the pocket of “Goldman Sachs the Pillage people.”
The party is over for “Goldman Sachs The Pillage People.”
.
Ricardo_Amaral 04/28/2010 11:48 AM Report
Charlie had a very interesting interview about the Goldman Sachs 3-ring Circus act of this afternoon.
It is interesting how people still are delusional about the future of Goldman Sachs, and there damage control going on all over the place right now on their behalf. And only fools would continue doing business with that banking-investment company.
Next time your pension fund, hedge fund, foreign government, local government at all levels in the US, or any other type of business – if you continue doing business with Goldman Sachs after everything that has been transpiring for a long time – at this point you will have a lot of explaining to do to a lot people when you lose money in any transactions and deals done with Goldman Sachs.
Basically, doing business with Goldman Sachs, it is like be asking to be taken for a ride.
After all the dust settles now that the horse is out of the barn, and people will be coming out of the woodwork with more misrepresentations done by Goldman Sachs – people will realize that Goldman Sachs is nothing more than a: “Bernie Madoff on steroids.”
I started an interesting discussion at the Elite Trader Economics Forum about Goldman Sachs about one week before Goldman Sachs was charged with fraud. The timing was perfect for that thread on the ET forum and there is a lot of interesting information that were posted on that website about Goldman Sachs regarding the last 2 years as follows:
Goldman Sachs is it a Cancer or just a Parasite of the US financial system?
http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=195957
*****
I hope Charlie Rose has the courage to bring very soon Nomi Prins to be interviewed on his TV show regarding her book: “It Takes a Pillage”
That would be a very interesting and insightful interview, since she used to work for “Goldman Sachs and the Pillage People.”
1) “It Takes a Pillage – Behind the Bailouts, Bonuses, and Backroom Deals from Washington to Wall Street” - By Nomi Prins
Published in October 2009 by John Wiley & Sons Inc.
Ricardo: I just read the book “It Takes a Pillage – Behind the Bailouts, Bonuses, and Backroom Deals from Washington to Wall Street” by Nomi Prins, a book published in October 2009. The book explains in detail the demise and complete destruction of the US economy by the power brokers of Wall Street.
After reading this book you finally will understand why the new generations of Americans don’t have any future and how Wall Street stole their future and wasted the money to the tune of trillions of US dollars. The author gives an outstanding explanation and detailed information about what happened in the US financial markets that ended up in a global financial meltdown. After reading this book you will have a much better understanding about what is going on with the US economy today, how we got to this point and the massive trouble that lies ahead of us.
Basically there is only one conclusion for this massive financial mess made in the USA, and the year 2008 marks the end of an era, and the capitalist brand of America.
Nomi Prins is a former managing director at Goldman Sachs, and her book exposes the corruption in Washington and Wall Street. Her articles are published in Fortune magazine, the Nation, Mother Jones, and other publications. And her latest book has become an important source of information about the corruption in Washington and its connection to Wall Street.
The book shows how the revolving door between Wall Street and Washington enabled and encouraged the disastrous behavior of large investment banks. You’ll meet the Pillage People: the men who funneled trillions of dollars directly to the banks and the executives whose companies drained the American economy.
.
robdverity 04/23/2010 11:55 PM Report
A blanket indictment of the following CEOs to be tried for fraud and malfeasance at a minimum is sorely needed to regain trust throughout our financial institutions: Ken Chenault, American Express; Ken Lewis, Bank of America; Robert Kelly, Bank of New York Mellon; Vikram Pandit, Citigroup; John Koskinen, Freddie Mac, Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman Sachs; Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase; John Mack, Morgan Stanley; Rick Waddell, Northern Trust; James Rohr, PNC; Ronald Logue, State Street; Richard Davis, US Bank; and John Stumpf, Wells Fargo.
If you bank at any of these you are being unpatriotic. Switch to a small local bank.
doodahdaze 04/21/2010 10:34 PM Report
I said, "... take an Uzi machine gun to them all", NOT, "... take an Uzi machine gun to the mall". There's a difference, you know.
doodahdaze 04/21/2010 01:28 PM Report
But I too, approve of his (that) rhetoric. .. hear here
doodahdaze 04/21/2010 01:18 PM Report
@robdverity,
Becuz the bankers (maybe Dimond?.) (repubs.) told poor unsuspecting W. that the 'community-help-homeownership-intiative' (whatever the hell it was called!), the mastermind of Barney Fag, Dodd, democrats, credit-default swappers, Wall-Streeters, 'conservatives', liberals, .. basicly EVERYBODY in the soap opera living off the fat of OUR land, was blowing smoke as hard as they could to get that balloon/bubble of "limited expansive material" to explode in everybody's faces except their own.
And unfortuneatly, from what I've seen of the Tea Party baggers, they've been barking up the wrong tree. Arguing over 'ideology' like a bunch of well paid imbuhsills.
NeilMacCallister 04/21/2010 05:28 AM Report
I am defending no one, Rob, ..least of all John Paulson, of whom I know very little.
What I am against, is charging full-bore into fog-banks, armed with only fistfulls of dollars; with the primary intentions of either using tax dollars to buy populist votes (as the government does), or seeking to secure high profits with tax-sheltered money (as do American individuals, and public and private unions).
The "fogbank" is the spaghetti-ball of regulations, obfuscations, and theoretical propoundings which keep us all melded to an outcome of wastefulness.
Last week, Mr. Stephen Green begged us to pass regulations requiring everybody to "do the right thing", ..while he simultaneously bemoaned that this could never be configured.
Charlie notes the two best resolves: Make investors "bet" with their own money (not public money), and limit proprietary trading by parties financially pledged to protect the monies of entrusting clients.
If Pete Rose can not make side-bets, ..how can those side-bets be allowed to Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman-Sachs?
A U.S. President must "freeze" or sell his holdings while he or she is in public office, why not a CEO who has taken on a similar fiduciary responsibility to investment clients?
Yet I don't feel so bad for those investors either, ..they could have placed their pensions and savings into deposit bank savings accounts, and drawn a protected rate.
There are just too many "trial-and-error" regulations trying to corral too many "trial-and-error" tax-avoiding high-return "investment" schemes.
None of those Rube Goldberg regulatory schemes will ever come close to conveying as much economic gravity as will the simple presence or absence of a 6 by 2-1/2 inch dollar bill held in your hand.
Put your money in your sock if you need to, ..and let the failures fall. That's about the limit of what can be written down for regulatory guidance.
"Neither a borrower nor a lender be, and to thine own self be true."
Most everything else is just fluff.
robdverity 04/21/2010 12:57 AM Report
Michael Lewis, author "The Big Short," was on C. Rose tonight. What a quality guy! His book is fantastic. His values are every thing the financial wise-guys are missing. A must read.
robdverity 04/20/2010 11:00 PM Report
Neil - I'm missing your point prob. But you seem to be defending Paulson? If so against what, or whom? He's not deemed the culprit as far as I can see - or shouldn't be at any rate.
The whole industry is indictable for fabricating a balloon out of limited expansive material - as they all are. Egregious greed is infinite (long) until it meets infinite egregious greed in the other direction (short). John Paul prob. considers himself a hero as he helped to keep the balloon from getting bigger, thus kept the collapse smaller as well. Perversely he may be right but I wouldn't buy a car from him.
robdverity 04/20/2010 10:41 PM Report
Mea culpa, doodah, I tried your link again and it worked. Surprised the hell out of me that it was George Bush and not Bill Clinton that was pushing home ownership for low income people. Govt assisted down payments, and laudably interest rates that DROPPED after a few years. Not increase as the ARMs do in the subprime. That with a more responsible vetting at the outset may have actually achieved its goal of assisting low incomers into the so-called American dream.
Kudos to George. I wrongfully assumed he would have been a I've-got-mine-where's-yours Republican on this and other issues. That's twice I've been wrong.
Thanks again.
NeilMacCallister 04/20/2010 10:28 PM Report
(I don't know, guys, ..but here's what I found with my yellow marker:)
_________________
CHARLIE ROSE: “Who lost money?”
LARRY INGRASSIA: “Banks, ..big institutional investors,..”
ROBEN FARZAD: “..pensions, teachers unions.”
***
CHARLIE ROSE: “John Paulson didn’t misrepresent anything.”
GRETCHEN MORGENSON: “The Goldman salesperson calls with an idea to buy,..”
LARRY INGRASSIA: “..and you’re letting some other client select them.”
GRETCHEN MORGENSON: “Keep in mind, Charlie, they made only $15 million facilitating this trade.”
CHARLIE ROSE: “In other words, that’s what John Paulson paid them.”
***
CHARLIE ROSE: “Is there anything proposed so far that would have changed what took place here?”
ROBEN FARZAD: “If the capital of the partners would be at risk, I don’t think they ever would have signed off on those trades. The fact that it was public, and there was this diffusion of responsibility, ..“
CHARLIE ROSE: “That idea keeps coming up time after time after time.”
***
JOHN COFFEE: “You can’t be agents to both sides of the transaction. There’s a fundamental conflict of interest here.”
CHARLIE ROSE: “Is that fundamental question being addressed by the financial regulatory reform that’s on the table?”
JOHN COFFEE: “Some of it is.”
robdverity 04/20/2010 10:20 PM Report
Of course it's staged. Obama is owned by the financial and MI oligarchs since early in his campaign. Rubin and Summers still have the receipt. Goldman prob. asked for nominal show of an investigation to be able to point to as a Fed. endorsement and exoneration.
Btw - your youtube site doesn't link.
doodahdaze 04/20/2010 09:16 PM Report
Now do you want to see something disturbing, Mr. MacCallister?. See this - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNqQx7sjoS8
Unfortunately, it's 'coarse validation' for the likes of you, rob.
doodahdaze 04/20/2010 08:52 PM Report
This may be speculative, but this whole thing seems staged. Why now? .. Are they feeling the heat from the apolitical (majority) public, a public starting to figure out their sniveling little games of deception and fraud. Maybe a little public-relations spanky-spanking will get the frazzled crowds off their backs and back to crying over their sacred (but now frivolous) 'ideologies'. Get the idiots to put back up their natural smokescreen, so they can get back to the business of making money off of everybody elses money.
I heard on the news this morning that Congressional repugnantcans and demogogcrats are now pointing fingers at each other over 'who' has been bought by the bankers (implying that some have not.?). What a joke. .. This will never happen, but it would be so nice if somebody would take a Uzi machine gun to them all. It wouldn't hurt my feelings one bit. And I don't give shit what anybody thinks about that.
robdverity 04/20/2010 06:30 PM Report
Neil - Knee jerk ans. Don’t know, don’t care. Forcing myself, Yes I’ve stopped beating my wife and the SEC is the more dangerous because of benign outcomes most probable from their probe into Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs will use the SEC’s impotent sanctions as validation by God himself that they were indeed his emissary on earth and his will be done through their Vatican like sanctorum. They will be fortified, not weakened.
[As an advocate of a VAT (or a graduated progressive sales tax, and a $1.50 gasoline tax), the TEA party doesn’t ring my bell. They’re silent on war deficits, but noisy on employment and health. Our values (mine and theirs) are not in sync.]
I share your skepticism re Toyota. Their quality has been flawless from my own experience. Reminiscent of the Tucker Motor car that GM scuttled. Jay Leno has to be being paid per joke, they’re so forced. Conspiracy works for me. Everything’s for sale. Integrity first on the block.
Re your series of queries on subprime mtgs. The distinction seems to be in “easier” to “fraudulent” loans. Qualifying loans weren’t coming fast enough with the repackaging and selling downstream, so recruiting NINJA loans became de rigueur.
As far as geography, there’s doubtless some accepted rationale for regional disparities. Sunshine: more vs less for example.
Were the ‘risky bundles’ sold at a price they were worth to reasonably alert buyer? [Another catch 22 have you stopped being stupid yet?] “Worth” and “Reasonably alert” are irreconcilable. Their worth was zero or next to it, so a reasonable buyer would offer zero or nothing. Its why John Paulson won. His answer was zero also. So he shorted in effect by buying insurance called a Credit Default Swap. As to caring where he bought, no one cares save me. I wish he had stung Citigroup instead. They’re bigger scumbags than Goldman and that’s saying something.
Lastly, “Were there any lies in the mortgage bundles’ sales contracts?” Of course. That’s why the collapse happened. NINJA loans, fraudulent ratings by Moody’s, S&P, Fitch (AAA, AA, BBB etc. No XXX cause your getting screwed.
An incredible episode brought about by entitled greedy little children all congregated mostly in NY and were able to export it around the globe.
Sadly we deserve these bastards, but they deserve a little come-uppance themselves. But alas venality will win-out. They’ll buy their way out and the corrosion will continue.
NeilMacCallister 04/20/2010 04:42 PM Report
Rob? ..doodah? ..Who is now more "dangerous"? ..The Tea-Party'ers or the newly-appointed SEC?
***
Last year, our executive branch purchased General Motors and had to find some way to boost car sales, ..so we had "Cash for Clunkers", and soon after, a sprouting of lawsuits against a primary General Motors competitor: Toyota Motor Corp; at least one of which were seen to be a hoax.
Within weeks, our Congress had the Toyota president weeping apologies before their panel.
A week later, Toyota closed a major asseembly plant in California.
***
By what I hear on 'Charlie Rose', ..our Congress 15 years ago asked banks to make "easy mortgage loans", so they did, and then sold the bundles to groups like Goldman-Sachs. Housing prices soared, and Michael Lewis and others saw a bubble-burst coming.
Prices dropped, foreclosures rose, and investment groups asked for congressional help with the now "troubled assets".
A public-account TARP check was cashed, but the money has been mostly retained by the Democratic Congress for their use in the upcoming elections (e.g., Barbara Boxer may be in trouble in her home area near where that Toyota plant closed)
Goldman-Sachs has been found to have been offering those "troubled assets" in bundles out to other investment gamblers.
What were the prices those bundles were offered at? ..Were those CA-Ariz-FL mortgage bundles offered at the same price as a Montana, N. Dakota, or Vermont bundle (..where foreclosure risk was low)?
Or were those "risky bundles" sold at the price they were worth to a reasonably alert buyer?
Did the sold documents NOT say those mortgages were in CA-ARIZ-FL??? (..LOL)
***
Who cares where Hedge-Fund John placed his bets?
Were there any lies in the mortgage bundles' sales contracts?
***
If I have this all wrong, ..please tell me!
robdverity 04/19/2010 11:09 PM Report
Doodah - the fact the deal was available at all is ipso facto what is wrong with it. CDOs were created out of egregious greed only to be topped by CDSs, a way of shorting the egregious greed. The case of musical chairs. The last egregious greedy holder of the wrong piece of paper loses.
I’m betting a night on either of their yachts would be singularly repugnant.
doodahdaze 04/19/2010 09:23 PM Report
I'm sure it was a very 'important' "deal".
I hope they remembered to pack clean underwear and deduct their meals and entertainment. It's hard work, don't want to get a splinter.
doodahdaze 04/19/2010 09:15 PM Report
"He made a billion dollars on this ""deal""." A BILLION dollars (That's BILLION with a "B") on a (singular, one) deal. ONE deal. one BILLION dollars.
what's wrong with that?
robdverity 04/19/2010 12:51 PM Report
Cynic or realist? Your call.
robdverity 04/19/2010 12:41 PM Report
Furthermore, while beating this horse, the cool-aid repeatedly dispensed that a financial collapse on a level with the depression was averted by bailing out these too-big-to-fail scumbags may well be tested if enough trust and confidence in the putrefaction of the big banks deteriorates to the same level had they failed. A smaller, humbler system that finances real need and productivity, rather than trading exotic pieces of paper (amongst themselves) - ultimately at our expense, will be more what our nation truly needs.
Financial wise-guys, even (or especially) when they’re doing God’s work, are anathema.
Taking bets (with odds of a CDS) that nothing substantive comes of the SEC charade. Doing more harm than good long term. Meaningless relatively inconsequential fines, maybe even short jail terms or two for underlings too far down the totem (suspended) will be about it.
We are a sicko culture, which assures the perps as well as the SEC, that they needn’t take any of this too seriously.
Don’t sell your stock in the yacht makers. Goldman Sachs are buying calls on the slumps. Converts to real thing later. And an upgrade later. Moral hazard harvest you see. Guaranteed.
robdverity 04/19/2010 12:01 PM Report
The SEC better be serious. To come up with in effect of, “Heh, heh we were just kidding.” two to three years hence (after it’s out of the public eye), will MOCK themselves, the system and our credibility world-wide. Which in turn will extend and exacerbate the recession - possibly into depression.
After all it’s the SEC’s malfeasance that sponsored PONZI-AMERICA (bubble-mania), and of course Bernie Madoff, so they have something to prove with a legacy of complicity of omission.
"The product was new and complex, but the deception and conflicts are old and simple," said Robert Khuzami, the SEC's enforcement chief.
Now to the real test: to date (in our corrosive culture) venality trumps statesmanship and integrity.
To test the corrosive power-of-money, the net worth of all SEC employees, related and non-related to the Goldman Sachs case should be monitored to head off their being bought-off. Unexplained or exorbitant and out-of-the-ordinary gains should be tracked for the duration of the proceedings and for years after. Relatives and close friends should also be monitored, along with any suspect offshore bank accounts.
This delayed action is long overdue. Done effectively it will add to curbing the moral hazard as much as direct derivative regulation itself. However, Goldman has to be only the beginning. Citigroup, for example, is teeming with scumbags. The whole industry is rife. Robert Rubin, et al, were instrumental in repealing Glass-Steagall, an initial enabler of fraudulent practices using OPM - other people’s money.
Obama, unfortunately, has been in bed with Rubin and Summers since early in his campaign, making the monitoring of this laudable but delinquent action all the more imperative - and problematical.
Khuzami, if he isn’t already, will doubtless have the opportunity to be a yacht owner. However, the price will be severe, as he will have to associate with people that contend that they were, “doing God’s work.”
If that in itself is not enough to avoid his corruption, than all is lost anyway. There’s God. Then there’s just doing the right thing. Statesmanship? A lost art in the U.S.
Venality > Statesmanship.