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99th_Monkey

(19,326 posts)
Thu Mar 15, 2012, 05:37 AM Mar 2012

While OWS hibernates & plans American Spring, Goldman Sachs & Bank of America go belly-up. [View all]

Make no mistake about it: the seeds sown during OWS "uprisings" are sprouting big-time.
These stories can no longer be repressed or ignored by very many, for very much longer.

tick - tock .. tick - tock ..

Goldman Stunned by Op-Ed Loses $2.2 Billion

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) saw $2.15 billion of its market value wiped out after an
employee assailed Chief Executive Officer Lloyd C. Blankfein’s management and the firm’s
treatment of clients, sparking debate across Wall Street.

The shares dropped 3.4 percent in New York trading yesterday, the third-biggest decline
in the 81-company Standard & Poor’s 500 Financials Index, after London-based Greg Smith
made the accusations in a New York Times op-ed piece.

Smith, who also wrote that he was quitting after 12 years at the company, blamed
Blankfein, 57, and President Gary D. Cohn, 51, for a “decline in the firm’s moral fiber.”
They responded in a memo to current and former employees, saying that Smith’s assertions
don’t reflect the firm’s values, culture or “how the vast majority of people at Goldman Sachs
think about the firm and the work it does on behalf of our clients.”
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-03-14/goldman-stunned-by-op-ed-loses-2-dot-2-billion-for-shareholders

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Bank of America: Too Crooked to Fail
The bank has defrauded everyone from investors and insurers to homeowners and the
unemployed. So why does the government keep bailing it out?
By Matt Taibbi - March 14, 2012 10:55 AM ET

At least Bank of America got its name right. The ultimate Too Big to Fail bank really is America,
a hypergluttonous ward of the state whose limitless fraud and criminal conspiracies we'll all be
paying for until the end of time. Did you hear about the plot to rig global interest rates?
The $137 million fine for bilking needy schools and cities? The ingenious plan to suck multiple
fees out of the unemployment checks of jobless workers? Take your eyes off them for 10 seconds
and guaranteed, they'll be into some shit again: This bank is like the world's worst-behaved
teenager, taking your car and running over kittens and fire hydrants on the way to Vegas for the
weekend, maxing out your credit cards in the three days you spend at your aunt's funeral. They're
out of control, yet they'll never do time or go out of business, because the government remains
creepily committed to their survival, like overindulgent parents who refuse to believe their
40-year-old live-at-home son could possibly be responsible for those dead hookers in the backyard.

It's been four years since the government, in the name of preventing a depression, saved this
megabank from ruin by pumping $45 billion of taxpayer money into its arm. Since then, the Obama
administration has looked the other way as the bank committed an astonishing variety of crimes –
some elaborate and brilliant in their conception, some so crude that they'd be beneath your average
street thug. Bank of America has systematically ripped off almost everyone with whom it has a
significant business relationship, cheating investors, insurers, depositors, homeowners, shareholders,
pensioners and taxpayers. It brought tens of thousands of Americans to foreclosure court using
bogus, "robo-signed" evidence – a type of mass perjury that it helped pioneer. It hawked worthless
mortgages to dozens of unions and state pension funds, draining them of hundreds of millions in
value. And when it wasn't ripping off workers and pensioners, it was helping to push insurance
giants like AMBAC into bankruptcy by fraudulently inducing them to spend hundreds of millions
insuring those same worthless mortgages.

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/bank-of-america-too-crooked-to-fail-20120314#ixzz1pAz0W0cH

30 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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How come there are no regulations in place? midnight Mar 2012 #1
Sorry Charlie, the horse is already out of the barn 99th_Monkey Mar 2012 #2
You may want to ask Mr. Hope & Change in the WH. ~nt 99th_Monkey Mar 2012 #3
Did you mean to say Mr. Trickledown? UnrepentantLiberal Mar 2012 #6
I think he meant to say chervilant Mar 2012 #8
+100 nt 99th_Monkey Mar 2012 #9
That works too. nt SammyWinstonJack Mar 2012 #14
Mr. Look forward and the banksters did nothing illegal, in the WH. nt. SammyWinstonJack Mar 2012 #13
Problem is ... 99th_Monkey Mar 2012 #16
Depressing, isn't it? SammyWinstonJack Mar 2012 #17
Depressing? ... well, actually ... yes and no 99th_Monkey Mar 2012 #19
Greg Smith should go on Olbermann, or Maddow, or even O'Reilly to explain himself Syrinx Mar 2012 #4
I have no vendetta against late-blooming whistle-blowers. 99th_Monkey Mar 2012 #5
Agreed, 100% Syrinx Mar 2012 #7
On, the stampede! woo me with science Mar 2012 #22
Mr Smith saw the writing on the wall and got out ONLY to make a profit with all he can. Justice wanted Mar 2012 #18
Banks have traditionally been one of our great bastions of rectitude and morality. tclambert Mar 2012 #10
I'm certain that's why Jesus got so pissed at the money-changers in the Temple. 99th_Monkey Mar 2012 #11
I've taken to saying Jesus threw the Republicans out of the temple. tclambert Mar 2012 #12
Absolutely. If I don't act like a greedy pig myself, then I'm somehow automatically "envious" of 1%? 99th_Monkey Mar 2012 #15
solution: sulphurdunn Mar 2012 #20
That would be most fitting, I agree. After all, these really are Economic Terrorists ~nt 99th_Monkey Mar 2012 #21
Greed, Selfishness, Arrogance, and Pathological Narcissism RULES at the TOP. bvar22 Mar 2012 #23
I just watched Inside Job and all I can say is, we are now a lawless country when it comes sabrina 1 Mar 2012 #27
I think the time for hibernation is over RZM Mar 2012 #24
Good point. Good weather omen? Like Mother Earth is saying 99th_Monkey Mar 2012 #30
Bank of America belly up? Who to believe? Buffett or the yellow journalist Taibbi? banned from Kos Mar 2012 #25
No wonder you were banned from Kos 99th_Monkey Mar 2012 #28
Letter to former Goldman Sachs exec Greg Smith: keep writing until you put them out of business yurbud Mar 2012 #26
That's awesome. Here's a juicy related link, in case you missed it. 99th_Monkey Mar 2012 #29
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