The presidents own swindlers
How Goldman secretly bet on the U.S. housing crash
WASHINGTON – In 2006 and 2007, Goldman Sachs Group peddled more than $40 billion in securities backed by at least 200,000 risky home mortgages, but never told the buyers it was secretly betting that a sharp drop in U.S. housing prices would send the value of those securities plummeting.
Goldman’s sales and its clandestine wagers, completed at the brink of the housing market meltdown, enabled the nation’s premier investment bank to pass most of its potential losses to others before a flood of mortgage defaults staggered the U.S. and global economies.
Only later did investors discover that what Goldman had promoted as triple-A rated investments were closer to junk.
The firm benefited when Paulson elected not to save rival Lehman Brothers from collapse, and when he organized a massive rescue of tottering global insurer American International Group while in constant telephone contact with Goldman chief Blankfein. With the Federal Reserve Board’s blessing, AIG later used $12.9 billion in taxpayers’ dollars to pay off every penny it owed Goldman.
These decisions preserved billions of dollars in value for Goldman’s executives and shareholders. For example, Blankfein held 1.6 million shares in the company in September 2008, and he could have lost more than $150 million if his firm had gone bankrupt.
With the help of more than $23 billion in direct and indirect federal aid, Goldman appears to have emerged intact from the economic implosion, limiting its subprime losses to $1.5 billion. By repaying $10 billion in direct federal bailout money – a 23 percent taxpayer return that exceeded federal officials’ demand – the firm has escaped tough federal limits on 2009 bonuses to executives of firms that received bailout money.</em>
Who did Obama reach out to for his senior financial advisors? Goldman. Who was a leading Obama contributor? Goldman. Who got rich while our economy tanked? Goldman.
Alexander Tyler once said the following:
A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury.</em>
Or until the rich can change the laws to squash competitors and hoover as much out of the public till as they can carry- it will be the same result either way. The neat part about America now…both are gutting this nation, fast as they can.
