How Did Goldman Sachs Know That The Housing Market Was About To Collapse?

[democracy1st]

Run time: 09:32 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7SE3eqPlNA   Posted on YouTube: November 02, 2009 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: December 20, 2009 By DU Member: democracy1st Views on DU: 585

 
A five-month McClatchy Newspaper investigation reveals how Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs peddled billions of dollars in shaky securities tied to subprime mortgages on unsuspecting pension funds, insurance companies and other investors, then dumped its risky investments and placed secret bets against the housing market right before the mortgage bubble burst.

Somehow, among Wall Street investment firms, only Goldman Sachs knew that the housing market was about to crash!

Is it merely a coincidence that Goldman Sachs President and CEO Henry ("Hank") Paulson happened to be serving as U.S. Treasury Department Secretary while this was going on???? The same Henry Paulson who threatened certain congressmen with MARTIAL LAW if they didn't pass the TARP last October.

Read the reports and decide for yourself:

How Goldman secretly bet on the U.S. housing crash
by Greg Gordon - 1 Nov. 2009.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/77791.html


Mystery: Why did Goldman stop scrutinizing loans it bought?
by Greg Gordon - 1 Nov. 2009.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/77788.html


Goldman takes on new role: taking away people's homes
by Greg Gordon - 2 Nov. 2009.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/77841.html



Blackstone, Goldman Sachs Back New Insurance Agency (Update1)

July 7 (Bloomberg) -- Blackstone Group LP, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Credit Suisse Group AG are backing a new U.S. firm marketing insurance to small businesses and middle-income individuals.

Insphere Insurance Solutions will sell life, retirement and health products through 3,500 agents when the Dallas-based firm launches in January, the company said in a statement. Funding comes from a $1 billion private equity investment made in 2005 in HealthMarkets Inc., a predecessor firm whose agents will be retrained as the Insphere sales force, said Phillip Hildebrand, chief executive officer of both companies, in an interview.

“What attracted Blackstone and Goldman Sachs was HealthMarkets’ agents,” Hildebrand, 56, said yesterday. “We had an asset many companies are without -- a delivery platform to take it to the customer. We said, ‘We have all these agents, why don’t we put them to work?’”

Firms including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have been investing in middlemen to generate fee income from insurance without taking on the risk of losses on investment portfolios backing policies. Insurers including Hartford Financial Services Group Inc., Liberty Mutual Group Inc. and Unum Group have been seeking to add smaller customers as larger clients pressured by the recession use their scale to demand lower rates.

Management Stake

Hildebrand spent more than three decades at New York Life Insurance Co., the biggest policyholder-owned U.S. life insurer, and was named vice chairman by the company in 2006. He said he was recruited by Blackstone to take over at HealthMarkets a year ago and installed his own senior management team to overhaul the firm. HealthMarkets was named UICI before the buyout, for about $1.7 billion, was completed in 2006.

Blackstone, Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse will own about 80 percent of Insphere, Hildebrand said. Sales agents will own 12 percent to 15 percent of the company, and management the rest, he said.

Insphere will sell policies created by HealthMarkets, as well as those of ING Groep NV, the Dutch bank and insurer, and is in talks to add products from more insurers, Hildebrand said. The company defines middle-income customers as those earning $50,000 to $250,000 a year.

One insurer whose products Insphere won’t initially market is American International Group Inc., Hildebrand said. The New York-based insurer has taken a federal bailout valued at $182.5 billion and reported about $100 billion in net losses last year after bad bets tied to housing markets.

“They’re going through some really tough times right now, and our agents have to deliver products from companies that are very solid and rated well that don’t have a lot of scrutiny around them,” he said.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=as.BRnlVf28Y

To contact the reporter on this story: Hugh Son in New York at [e-mail]

[midnight]

1. I think Feb/March of 08 Elliot Spitzer wrote an article saying something to that effect.

Then he became under the radar for paying for sex, and was removed from office....

[truedelphi]

2. Something to what effect?

I would love to know what you are telling us, but you didn't spell it out.

Please develop the sentence...