Now we know the truth. The financial meltdown wasn’t a mistake — it was a con


Will Hutton
The Guardian
April 19, 2010

A d v e r t i s e m e n t
The global financial crisis, it is now clear, was caused not just by the bankers’ colossal mismanagement. No, it was due also to the new financial complexity offering up the opportunity for widespread, systemic fraud. Friday’s announcement that the world’s most famous investment bank, Goldman Sachs, is to face civil charges for fraud brought by the American regulator is but the latest of a series of investigations that have been launched, arrests made and charges made against financial institutions around the world. Big Finance in the 21st century turns out to have been Big Fraud. Yet Britain, centre of the world financial system, has not yet levelled charges against any bank; all that we’ve seen is the allegation of a high-level insider dealing ring which, embarrassingly, involves a banker advising the government. We have to live with the fiction that our banks and bankers are whiter than white, and any attempt to investigate them and their institutions will lead to a mass exodus to the mountains of Switzerland. The politicians of the Labour and Tory party alike are Bambis amid the wolves.

Just consider the roll call beyond Goldman Sachs. In Ireland Sean FitzPatrick, the ex-chair of the Anglo Irish bank was arrested last month and questioned over alleged fraud. In Iceland last week a dossier assembled by its parliament on the Icelandic banks – huge lenders in Britain – was handed to its public prosecution service. A court-appointed examiner found that collapsed investment bank Lehman knowingly manipulated its balance sheet to make it look stronger than it was – accounts originally audited by the British firm Ernst and Young and given the legal green light by the British firm Linklaters. In Switzerland UBS has been defending itself from the US’s Inland Revenue Service for allegedly running 17,000 offshore accounts to evade tax. Be sure there are more revelations to come – except in saintly Britain.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/apr/18/goldman-sachs-regulators-civil-charges

you just catching up to that reality. Mmmmm

morpheus24:

you just catching up to that reality. Mmmmm

I already knew, just wanted to bring proof to this forum so that I dont get labelled a conspiracy theorist!!!

Greed and incompetence does not amount to fraud. There are people who are baying for blood but it's hard to establish criminal culpability on the part of bankers.

The recent SEC action against Goldman Sachs seems to me a red herring and a publicity stunt. Time will prove GS right.

I'm sure we all know it was due to greed and borrowing using Chinese money as collateral (basically manufacturing money) and other forms of snake oil.
Thats why Enron bosses are in jail, why Bernard Maddof is cooling off in a US federal instituition, why Fred "the shred" Goodwin is persona non grata in the UK until tomorrow.
Many more will fall, but only a fraction (the rich and powerful employ the best brains, lawyers and services).

4 Play:

The recent SEC action against Goldman Sachs seems to me a red herring and a publicity stunt. Time will prove GS right.

Well, lets see. . . . Thank God no be Naija we dey sha. . . . if it was in Naija, there would be uproar over the GS case, and the case of the two arrested Bear Stearns executives. . . . whilst GS may or may not be a case of political posturing, thank God say no be "Northern Agenda" cos it would be doom and gloom on the markets for sure. 

john_blaze:

I already knew, just wanted to bring proof to this forum so that I dont get labelled a conspiracy theorist!!!

Knew what?

you just catching up to that reality. Mmmmm

like u knew it all along?

MandingoII:

like u knew it all along?

Are you threatened by my superior intellect.

Its a Nigerian thing lol

SEC is gon jack up the court house and out Goldmann egg's under it.

Ordinarily, stuffs like this are settled privately, but it seems SEC is just looking to carve a clean scape goat from outta Goldmann.