This can't be true can it?

[Requia ☣]

    The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged Goldman, Sachs & Co. and one of its vice presidents for defrauding investors by misstating and omitting key facts about a financial product tied to subprime mortgages as the U.S. housing market was beginning to falter.

http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2010/2010-59.htm

[Chairman Risus]

Neat-o.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Something right happening in the world???

Everything is upside-down!

[Freeky]

IT'S A SIGN OF THE END TIMES!

[East Coast Hustle]

Gotta admit, I'm more than a little amazed at this.

[Durivan]

Some people think the SEC will intentionally botch the case.  I think we will have to wait and see. Sure the criminals on wall street don't want to stop what they're doing, but I figure at least part of wall street as well as most non-financial businesses realize things can't continue on the way they are. (aka it isn't good for business if the crooks on wall street continue to completely blow up the economy every few years.)

[Remington]

Germany, UK demand Goldman Sachs probe
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1813967320100418

LONDON/FRANKFURT, April 18 (Reuters) - Germany and Britain will seek details from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) about the activities of Goldman Sachs Group Inc as a prelude to potential legal steps following a U.S.-led fraud investigation.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Sunday he wanted Britain's financial watchdog to investigate U.S. bank Goldman Sachs after it was charged with fraud by U.S. regulators.

Brown, who is fighting an election campaign, piled pressure on Wall Street's most powerful bank, accusing it of "moral bankruptcy" over reported plans to pay big bonuses.

Goldman Sachs was charged with fraud by the SEC on Friday over its marketing of a subprime mortgage product. Goldman has called the U.S. lawsuit "completely unfounded" and has vowed to defend itself.

"I want a special investigation done into the entanglement of Goldman Sachs and the companies there with other banks and what happened," Brown told BBC television.

"There are hundreds of millions of pounds have been traded here and it looks as if people were misled about what happened. I want the Financial Services Authority (FSA) to investigate it immediately," he said.

"I know that the banks themselves will be considering legal action," Brown said, apparently referring to European banks that lost money on the product marketed by Goldman Sachs.

"We will work with the Securities and Exchange Commission in the United States," he said.

A spokeswoman for the FSA declined to comment, although a person familiar with the matter said it was liaising with the SEC, but currently viewed the investigation as primarily a U.S. matter.

Brown's Labour Party lags in the polls before the May 6 election and a tough stance against bankers is popular with voters angry about high bonuses paid by banks, particularly those that received state bailouts during the financial crisis.

The FSA is operationally independent and the British government cannot order it to launch an investigation.

Pleasepleasepleaseplease

[Juana]

I wonder if this all is related to Obama's push for support on his banking reform.

And awesome! I would love this to go through.

[Xooxe]

The volcano gods clearly demand a sacrifice.

[Requia ☣]

The volcano gods clearly demand a sacrifice.

I almost wonder if the VP in question is a fall guy.  He confesses in exchange for leniency, claims he acted alone, and GS disawows all knowledge in a bid to keep the profits.

[Doktor Howl]

The volcano gods clearly demand a sacrifice.

I almost wonder if the VP in question is a fall guy.  He confesses in exchange for leniency, claims he acted alone, and GS disawows all knowledge in a bid to keep the profits.

Waterboard the bastard.

It's the American Way.

[Kai]

$20 they have good lawyers and will get the charges dismissed.

[Elder Iptuous]

The volcano gods clearly demand a sacrifice.

I almost wonder if the VP in question is a fall guy.  He confesses in exchange for leniency, claims he acted alone, and GS disawows all knowledge in a bid to keep the profits.

that's what i'm thinking.
and he'll be handsomely rewarded for his generous sacrifice for the company after he gets out right after the story is out of the public eye...

[Richter]

$20 they have good lawyers and will get the charges dismissed.

Lawyers who know how much they made out with, and how much they can bleed them for if they drag out the litigation.  It'd be a phyrric victory, but the longer pressure is kept on them, the longer they hemorhage cash into defense, the more they loose.   

[Cain]

$20 they have good lawyers and will get the charges dismissed.

Lawyers who know how much they made out with, and how much they can bleed them for if they drag out the litigation.  It'd be a phyrric victory, but the longer pressure is kept on them, the longer they hemorhage cash into defense, the more they loose.   

All good except...whose money is Goldman Sachs spending in their defense, again?  I mean, they just got given tens of billions of Treasury funds, had their best two years of business ever and have their guys sitting on all the major financial government institutions, I don't think lawyers fees are an issue here.

Also, the UK has already shown itself to be utterly without balls when it comes to Goldman Sachs - like when they threatened to move 20% of their staff to Spain to escape a one off "supertax", and the Treasury quavered like fools.

You want to make Goldman Sachs and the rest frightened?  Do what the Japanese Ministry of Finance threatened to do in 1985, when Merrill Lynch tried to fuck them over: put them through an audit.  Every damn day.  Until they get the hint.  A Ministry-sanctioned full audit is an especially slow and ritualised form of torture, which makes running the business almost impossible.  Computers are compounded, filing cabinets are taken away for photocopying....normal operations are impossible.