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

[99th_Monkey]

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

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

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

[midnight]

1. How come there are no regulations in place?

[99th_Monkey]

2. Sorry Charlie, the horse is already out of the barn

is that your point?

If it is, it is well taken IMHO.

[99th_Monkey]

3. You may want to ask Mr. Hope & Change in the WH. ~nt

[UnrepentantLiberal]

6. Did you mean to say Mr. Trickledown?

[chervilant]

8. I think he meant to say

Mr. Corporate Sock Puppet.

[99th_Monkey]

9. +100 nt

[SammyWinstonJack]

14. That works too. nt

[SammyWinstonJack]

13. Mr. Look forward and the banksters did nothing illegal, in the WH. nt.

[99th_Monkey]

16. Problem is ...

every time I DO actually attempt to "look forward" clearly,
I don't see ANY future for me or my children & grand-children,
... not to mention my planet .. that I can feel proud of, or even
be OK with.

Of course you already know this, but I posted this ... just
in case some who read this haven't quite "gotten it" just yet.

[SammyWinstonJack]

17. Depressing, isn't it?

What really sucks is, IT DID NOT have go this way.

GREED IS NOT GOOD!

[99th_Monkey]

19. Depressing? ... well, actually ... yes and no

yes in all the obvious senses,
and no in sense that you and I,
and everyone who's alive now,
we all have collective power,
to change it all & turn it all around.

And I absolutely love the truth
of that as well.

that's what OWS movement
is all about IMHO.

[Syrinx]

4. Greg Smith should go on Olbermann, or Maddow, or even O'Reilly to explain himself

Did it really take him twelve years to discover the corruption? He rode the gravy train for as long as he could.

[99th_Monkey]

5. I have no vendetta against late-blooming whistle-blowers.

If I did, I would not be serving either Occupy's, nor humanity's, best collective interests.

I welcome any and all defectors and whistle-blowers from ex-boot-lickers of the
1%, who have damning information to bring forth into the light of day.

Come one, come all.

Better yet, how about a stampede?


The 1% =>


But I DO TOTALLY agree he needs to be on Maddow, Olberman, and Tweety ASAP,
for his own safety if nothing else.

[Syrinx]

7. Agreed, 100%

[woo me with science]

22. On, the stampede!

[Justice wanted]

18. Mr Smith saw the writing on the wall and got out ONLY to make a profit with all he can.

Watch him come out with a "Tell All" book and make a mint giving speeches and what not. The Whole "confession" is just a game. He wants to make as much as possible. Like they said on Keith's show last night. The average GS worker makes about 500,000 you take that over 12 and he at least walked out with a few million. Jumping one gravy train to another.

[tclambert]

10. Banks have traditionally been one of our great bastions of rectitude and morality.

(Sometimes I crack myself up.)

[99th_Monkey]

11. I'm certain that's why Jesus got so pissed at the money-changers in the Temple.

they just had WAY too much "rectitude and morality",
way more than Jesus and his ilk could tolerate.

[tclambert]

12. I've taken to saying Jesus threw the Republicans out of the temple.

Of course, J was just envious of their success.

[99th_Monkey]

15. Absolutely. If I don't act like a greedy pig myself, then I'm somehow automatically "envious" of 1%?

... especially if I have audacity enough to actually NOTICE and give
voice to how over-the-top greedy some other of my "fellow humans"
are acting.

[sulphurdunn]

20. solution:

Since the Bill of Rights has been suspended, why not disappear the Dons to some black site and let them rot there without recourse to due process, which is legal treatment for any US citizen these days. That might just put some fear in even the greediest piggies.

[99th_Monkey]

21. That would be most fitting, I agree. After all, these really are Economic Terrorists ~nt

[bvar22]

23. Greed, Selfishness, Arrogance, and Pathological Narcissism RULES at the TOP.

The windows Wall Street broke in the years leading up to the crash of 2008 remain broken. Despite financial fraud on a scale not seen in this country for more than eighty years, not a single executive of a major Wall Street bank has been charged with a crime.

Since 2009, the Securities and Exchange Commission has filed 25 cases against mortgage originators and securities firms. A few are still being litigated but most have been settled. They’ve generated almost $2 billion in penalties and other forms of monetary relief, according to the Commission. But almost none of this money has come out of the pockets of CEOs or other company officials; it has come out of the companies — or, more accurately, their shareholders. Federal prosecutors are now signaling they won’t even bring charges in the brazen case of MF Global, which lost billions of dollars that were supposed to be kept safe.

Nor have any of the lawyers, accountants, auditors, or top executives of credit-rating agencies who aided and abetted Wall Street financiers been charged with doing anything wrong.

And the new Dodd-Frank law that was supposed to prevent this from happening again is now so riddled with loopholes, courtesy of Wall Street lobbyists, that it’s almost a sham. The Street prevented the Glass-Steagall Act from being resurrected, and successfully fought against limits on the size of the largest banks.

http://robertreich.org/post/19266068257

You will know them by their WORKS,
not by their excuses.
[font size=5 color=green]Solidarity99![/font][font size=2 color=green]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------[/center]

[sabrina 1]

27. I just watched Inside Job and all I can say is, we are now a lawless country when it comes

to Economic Terrorists and War Criminals. It should be required viewing for every American so they understand the enormity of the crimes these people got away with, not to mention the huge amounts of money they took with them.

Not only have none of them been held accountable, they have been hugely rewarded for crashing the world economy, and it's clear they knew what they were doing.

Some day maybe, when or IF the rule of law is ever re-established for the top 1%, some of them will pay for their crimes. But so far, it doesn't seem likely.

At the beginning of the film, someone compared this kind of excessive greed to a drug addiction. There seems to be some studies that demonstrate the drive for excessive power and money affects the same part of the brain that is affected by other addictions.

What is striking about them, when the appeared before Congress is that they had no remorse at all. They feel entitled to the billions they took at the expense of this country.

This is truly a very dark period in our history.

[RZM]

24. I think the time for hibernation is over

Spring weather is already here. This week set records all over the country.

http://www.weather.com/outlook/weather-news/news/articles/record-warmth-this-week_2012-03-11

[99th_Monkey]

30. Good point. Good weather omen? Like Mother Earth is saying

"WAKE UP OWS! It's Spring already!!"

[banned from Kos]

25. Bank of America belly up? Who to believe? Buffett or the yellow journalist Taibbi?

hmmmmm.....

I believe Buffett!

[99th_Monkey]

28. No wonder you were banned from Kos

if you really believe Taibbi to be a "yellow journalist".

[yurbud]

26. Letter to former Goldman Sachs exec Greg Smith: keep writing until you put them out of business

I sent this as a letter to to the editor at the New York Times:

I just have one question for Mr. Smith: since your column cost Goldman Sachs $2.2 billion, could you keep writing until you put these sociopathic economic terrorists out of business? They have done more damage to America and the world than the regular kind of terrorists could ever hope to in their wildest dreams.

Since it is clear the Obama administration is going to prosecute Goldman Sachs and others like them (and certainly no Republican replacement would either), we need insiders like you to speak up until their money, a gun they hold to the head of the world economy, is gone.

[99th_Monkey]

29. That's awesome. Here's a juicy related link, in case you missed it.

Goodbye to Goldman: Will Blankfein Be Next?
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-03-14/goodbye-to-goldman-will-blankfein-be-next

Sounds like Business Week suspects it may already be a done deal, (i.e. "goodbye Goldman&quot