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Goldman Sachs won't face U.S. charges for mortgage securities (fraud)
  • http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-goldman-sachs-justice-investigation-mortgages-20120810,0,6319671.story

    The system is broken. The lawmakers, judges and politicians are bought off and corrupted beyond belief.

    If they can get away with this they can get away with anything.

    Now watch these arseholes continue the accelerated forseclosure of homes they have no legal title over and the pillaging of people's pensions and life savings with absolute impunity.

  • 21 Replies sorted by
  • Do you see any surprise here?

    It is called capitalism for a reason. Capital is in charge. :-)

    In you want people to be in charge, it is called socialism :-)

  • @subco

    LOL. Just try not to turn this into anti US topic.

  • @subco "I also heard that the US carefully plans conflicts years ahead an invasion, in order to create 'bad guys' for its citizens to support the 'democratic liberation' of X and Y countries.. but nobody in the world takes action against this practice. Is this for real!? I refuse to believe it"

    Sorry subco but it's true...

    "General Wesley Clark reveals the US plan to invade and take over 7 countries, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Lybia, Somalia, Sudan, And Iran, before we even invaded Afghanistan. The first part of the plan was revealed 10 days after 9/11 and was expanded to included the other nations. Clark is quoted as saying the invasion wasn't based on links to Al-Queda or any other intelligence reports but just because the US has an army that is great at taking over other nations."

  • @Vitaliy_Kiselev

    "Do you see any surprise here? It is called capitalism for a reason. Capital is in charge. :-) In you want people to be in charge, it is called socialism :-)"

    With the corporate/financial control of the the US Government along with the expanding domestic police state I think the US is closer to becoming a fascist state than many realise.

  • With the corporate/financial control of the the US Government along with the expanding domestic police state I think the US is closer to becoming a fascist state than many realise.

    Yes, the US has not been capitalist for a while... a more accurate term is "Corporatist". The market would have been allowed to run it's natural course and the banks would have been allowed to collapse under a true free-market capitalist system.

    Capitalism is actually not inherently a bad system... the government just failed preventing corporate power/corruption. Corporations should simply have never been allowed in the first place... only proprietary-ownership businesses.

  • The market would have been allowed to run it's natural course and the banks would have been allowed to collapse under a true free-market capitalist system.

    LOL. Invisible hand theory again. It is finger of this hand that is pushing US in the big ass hole. :-) My only concern is that it could be too deep in the ass before many will see the hand :-)

    the government just failed preventing corporate power/corruption

    Let's rephrase your statement, it'll sound something like.. man did not punished himself.

    Corporations should simply have never been allowed in the first place... only proprietary-ownership businesses.

    Same thing. Corporations exist because this is handy organisation tool making it easy to merge them and hide real owners. Capitalist elites can't banish capitalists for using tool that is very handy for them.

  • @bwhitz Yes the 'too big to fails' should have been allowed to fail instead of being bailed out by the taxpayer. However that's the problem. If you know you can privatise your profits and socialise your losses then there is no incentive other than to maintain a corrupt business model.

    The problem now is that after many banking failures stemming from the engineered 2008 GFC the 'too big to fails', through mergers and take overs, have become even bigger.

    With most major economies (apart from China and India) now technically bankrupt then next coming financial storm will be the straw that breaks the camel's back.

  • @Vitaliy_Kiselev

    LOL. Invisible hand theory again.

    yep. same invisible hand that governs physics and evolution... :) Where is the origin of energy? What causes gravity? All from the same invisible place. There is a "natural state" or "mean" of the universe and all of the subsequent systems in it. We just interfere with it allot...

    Let's rephrase your statement, it'll sound something like.. man did not punished himself.

    Maybe... but this is the governments most important role in capitalist economies.

    If you know you can privatise your profits and socialise your losses then there is no incentive other than to maintain a corrupt business model.

    Yep. This is part of Collectivism.

  • With most major economies (apart from China and India) now technically bankrupt

    You can view on this from other side. Like this "bankrupt" countries exchanged zeroes in databases to the real goods, work and resources. Looks different, isn't it?

    same invisible hand that governs physics and evolution...

    I have problem with using physics in this context. And even more problem to try to attach evolution, as evolution is fighting with quite visible hand of nature, as new species fit better and can take more from nature. Most advanced species are able to learn (as it is hundreds time faster then physical adaptation), and human species added very complex social structures and rules to this to help them to fight nature (and other humans :-) ) in very big groups.

  • I have problem with using physics in this context. And even more problem to try to attach evolution, as evolution is fighting with quite visible hand of nature, as new species fit better and can take more from nature.

    It wasn't a literal comparison. I was just using physics and evolution as examples that there are "invisible" hands or "forces" at work, or so to speak...

  • @bwhitz - "Yes, the US has not been capitalist for a while... a more accurate term is "Collectivist". "

    I think the word you're looking for is "corporatist". The ruling oligarchy in the US does not operate as a collective but as an interlocking network of hierarchical power relationships. In social activist circles, collectives typically form as non-hierarchical volunteer organizations based on democratic decision-making practices. Oligarchs have little use for such idealistic notions.

  • For those that haven't yet seen the documentary 'Inside Job' I suggest you do.

    What is astounding is that none of these financial terrorists have been stripped of their ill gotten gains and sent to prison!

  • @pundit

    I've seen "Inside Job." It'll make you sick... and the directors/writers only touched upon the tip of the iceberg. The banks are still doing exactly what they did before the crash... with zero oversight.

    This is why JP Morgan/Chase lost over 7 billion of their clients' funds on risky bets not long ago, the British banks were allowed to manipulate the LIBOR rates, and HSBC helped finance global terrorist networks and drug trafficking rings. Goldman Sachs has been hiding sovereign debt and cooking the books for Greece and other European Union members for years. Now the cat's out of the bag.

    And no one has gone to jail and very few ever will. They'll pick a few underlings to throw under the bus to show that they're doing something about this mess, but nothing will actually change.

    All you need are an army of lobbyists and unlimited funds to buy some politicians, my friends... ;) This isn't just happening in the U.S. It's happening EVERYWHERE.

    In the U.S., Obama won't push to stop the out of control banks and Wall Street, and neither will Romney (if, God forbid, he wins this November). In politics, you don't bite the hand that feeds you.

  • @LPowell

    I think the word you're looking for is "corporatist".

    Actually, yea, I was just about to edit my post... haha.

  • LOL. Invisible hand theory again. It is finger of this hand that is pushing US in the big ass hole. :-) My only concern is that it could be too deep in the ass before many will see the hand :-)

    Thank you for the lovely imagery V.

  • Actually Capitalism is bad for the planet as a whole, even a ideal true free market. It is far too shortsighted and destructive

  • QUESTION: How do I edit my posts in order to highlight quotes from other forum contributors?

    @JohnTollwannabe

    "All you need are an army of lobbyists and unlimited funds to buy some politicians, my friends... ;) This isn't just happening in the U.S. It's happening EVERYWHERE.

    In the U.S., Obama won't push to stop the out of control banks and Wall Street, and neither will Romney (if, God forbid, he wins this November). In politics, you don't bite the hand that feeds you."

    Two out of the top three contributors to Obama's 2008 election campaign were Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan.

  • It's a measure of how far the oligarchical rot has progressed in the U.S. that there actually were prosecutions of bankers in the late 80s and early 90s under Reagan and Bush I, for the fraud which ensued after the first round of bank deregulation.

    Goldman Sachs would probably have been immune even 20 years ago, but these days the U.S. government won't even prosecute low-level bankers. Their immunity is particularly obscene, in light of our otherwise highly vindicate "justice" system -- where people are put away for life for petty crimes and where the private prison industry actively lobbies the government for longer prison sentences.

    There used to be sick joke which ran, kill one person in the U.S. and you'll get executed. Kill 100,000 and you'll be invited to a peace conference. Kill 3 million and you'll win a Nobel Peace Prize.

    That same skewed application of law is seen with the financial system these days. The FBI estimates that 80-90% of the mortgage disaster was based on institutional fraud, but the only people in jail for mortgage fraud are a few unlucky applicants who signed applications fraudulently filled out by mortgage brokers.

  • @pundit,

    And that's why JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs groomed sycophants like Henry Paulson (G.W. Bush's pick) and Timothy Geithner (Obama's pick) are running the Treasury and the Fed.

    The foxes guard the hen house.

    Under Clinton, Alan Greenspan and his merry band set the system up for failure.

    Here is retired Senator Byron Dorgan (North Dakota) talking about his dire warnings from 1999. Almost 10 years later, he was proven right about removing the Glass–Steagall Act and other regulations designed to stop the calamity that happened in 2007/2008 and is still happening on Wall Street and the "too big to fail" banks.

    We desperately need honest leaders like Byron Dorgan again. Now we have clowns like John Boehner (an Orange-American who likes to cry), Eric Cantor (the poster child for smarmy used car salesmen), and Harry Reid (Mr. Milk Toast) running the place.