The People vs. Goldman Sachs -Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone unloads a broadside indictment

[stockholmer]

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-people-vs-goldman-sachs-20110511




"They weren't murderers or anything; they had merely stolen more money than most people can rationally conceive of, from their own customers, in a few blinks of an eye. But then they went one step further. They came to Washington, took an oath before Congress, and lied about it.

Thanks to an extraordinary investigative effort by a Senate subcommittee that unilaterally decided to take up the burden the criminal justice system has repeatedly refused to shoulder, we now know exactly what Goldman Sachs executives like Lloyd Blankfein and Daniel Sparks lied about. We know exactly how they and other top Goldman executives, including David Viniar and Thomas Montag, defrauded their clients. America has been waiting for a case to bring against Wall Street. Here it is, and the evidence has been gift-wrapped and left at the doorstep of federal prosecutors, evidence that doesn't leave much doubt: Goldman Sachs should stand trial.


The great and powerful Oz of Wall Street was not the only target of Wall Street and the Financial Crisis: Anatomy of a Financial Collapse, the 650-page report just released by the Senate Subcommittee on Investigations, chaired by Democrat Carl Levin of Michigan, alongside Republican Tom Coburn of Oklahoma. Their unusually scathing bipartisan report also includes case studies of Washington Mutual and Deutsche Bank, providing a panoramic portrait of a bubble era that produced the most destructive crime spree in our history — "a million fraud cases a year" is how one former regulator puts it. But the mountain of evidence collected against Goldman by Levin's small, 15-desk office of investigators — details of gross, baldfaced fraud delivered up in such quantities as to almost serve as a kind of sarcastic challenge to the curiously impassive Justice Department — stands as the most important symbol of Wall Street's aristocratic impunity and prosecutorial immunity produced since the crash of 2008............................"

snip

much much more at link above



This article appears in the May 26, 2011 issue of Rolling Stone. The issue is available now on newsstands and will appear in the online archive May 13.

[fascisthunter]

1. If Only all involved would be locked up in Prison...

and not some country club, but a real prison.

[Kaleko]

16. Fat chance when the Justice Dept. is in collusion with robber barons and war profiteers.

Matt Taibbi's last sentence in the same article spells out what's at stake:

"If the Justice Department fails to give the American people a chance to judge this case — if Goldman skates without so much as a trial — it will confirm once and for all the embarrassing truth: that the law in America is subjective, and crime is defined not by what you did, but by who you are."

[fascisthunter]

35. indeed.... and unfortunately, with what "little" I know about our Justice System

I have little faith there will be any serious investigation and at the end of it, these criminals will walk. And it pisses me off.

[JDPriestly]

42. And by how many clever lawyers you can buy.

[JDPriestly]

43. And by how many clever lawyers you can buy.

[CurtEastPoint]

2. Thanks, Matt Taibbi! n/t

[flakey_foont]

3. Thanks

Looking forward to reading the article.

[LiberalAndProud]

4. curiously impassive Justice Department

sums in up under so many venues ... unless we want to talk about medical marijuana.

Can we be done with Holder, please can we be done with Holder!?!

[nichomachus]

13. They're too busy hating on the gays to bother with a trifle like this

[Warren DeMontague]

24. That's not fair

they're also spending a great deal of energy protecting the nation from pot smoking cancer grannies.

[OnyxCollie]

45. They're also too busy to enforce their order

for ES&S to diversify.

But, hey, it's only a monopoly held by a private, highly partisan company using secret, proprietary software (which always seems to err on the side of republicans) to count our VOTES, so it's not like it's a big deal or anything.

Besides, if Obama couldn't be bothered to replace those politicized US Attorneys when he took office, why should this matter?

[Kurovski]

55. +1000

[xxqqqzme]

58. No joke! Holder is a

monumental disappointment. It as been a long tome since we had a good, aggressive, Constitition protecting attorney general.

[Vinnie From Indy]

5. Taibbi is one of America's most fearless journalists

Continually beating these criminals over the head in public can get a guy whacked. Especially when there is billions of dollars involved. Viva Taibbi!

Cheers!

[valerief]

9. He is very brave. nt

[2banon]

18. Matt Taibbi and Jeremy Scahill are two in a league of their own

Once in a while someone else will emerge on my radar as thorough and fearless as these two journalists are.. but that happens too seldom.

The only thing the JD is good for is going after really very low hanging fruit and even then they're hard pressed to act. Unless of course it something to threaten their outrageous drug war racket, so they're going after pot growers.. sheesh. worthless asshats.

[mod mom]

30. + 1

[SpiralHawk]

31. + 1,000

America desperately needs more real journalists.

The corporate media FAUX journalists are, by and large, just pissing into the public arena.

[hifiguy]

6. Read his "Griftopia"

After doing so you will be convinced of one thing: that every one of the senior execs at Goldman should be taken out dancing. At the end of a rope. ASAP.

GS is one of the largest criminal enterprises on the planet and should be crushed like an insect, smashed into a billion pieces and the earth plowed with salt behind it.

[jtuck004]

52. Yet we keep hiring them into positions as government advisors

and managers of the public trust, even advising presidents. Then they go back to the sector and make even more money.

This has gone on through several administrations, so much so it's become the norm. One has to wonder why the American people don't see it as a problem. Stories about the revolving door between the White House/other government offices and Goldman Sachs, and resources like Griftopia, It Takes a Pillage, Econned, Broke, USA, "Inside Job" make the stories clear.

It should concern us all greatly that 1 in 7 are unemployed, underemployed, or discouraged - that is, not productive. It really should motivate us to demand a jobs program, because waiting on this to fix itself is a slow death for at least 20 years. Yet neither of those things seems to supplant the love of Charlie Sheen news.

Are their civics and economics just too divorced from their daily life?

[mike_c]

7. that is an awesome article....

The K and the R.

[aSpeckofDust]

8. Let's call them what they are. Economic terrorists. Imagine how many had their lives destroyed

by their greed, how many countries. They've done more harm to the world than any other terrorist could dream of.

[peace frog]

25. Exactly right

Al Qaeda, eat your hearts out.

[russspeakeasy]

49. They did what OBL couldn't. They destroyed more lives than OBL.

[indepat]

10. That the Justice Department is dubbed curiously impassive about

such a seemingly massive fraud that almost precipitated a complete financial meltdown is something that surely whets this bunny's curiosity. :patriot:

[sarcasmo]

11. The revolving door of Government employees through the Goldman Sachs door is amazing.

[saras]

12. If anyone ever deserved to spend their years in prison tossing salad...

[gratuitous]

14. They went more than one step further

Now they're paying out massive bonuses, and whining to anyone who will listen (i.e., politicians they're trying to bribe) about how unfair all this regulatory scrutiny is, how it's hamstringing their efforts to create wealth (oh, and jobs - yeah, that's the ticket), and can't everyone just back off so they can scam people in peace?

[mountainlion55]

15. The DLC

and Mr.Obama are joined at the hip with these banksters. Whats the odds anything will happen?:smoke:

[WillyT]

17. HUGE K & R !!!

:kick:

[leftstreet]

19. K&R

[Octafish]

20. Taibbi and Rolling Stone deserve Pulitzers.

Every one of the guy's Wall Street articles are pure gold.

(And for opening up The Fed's books, Bernie Sanders deserves a Presidential Medal of Freedom.)

[freshwest]

21. Wow, thanks... Too bad they feel no shame at being exposed. Probably makes them feel proud.

[Rex]

22. It will never happen...the fed govt sucks Big Biz cock so much they

developed calluses on their lips long ago. I hear they have two to three extra inches of skin on their knees now...evolution from the eternal money position.

[flamingdem]

23. bookmarking ..

[Enthusiast]

26. When Bush was "elected" it was

a signal to the cronie capitalists that anything goes. We are suffering from the results. Now those that benefited from lax oversight are screaming about the woefully inadequate new regulations passed by the Democrats. It is truly fucking unbelievable.

[stockholmer]

48. truly monstrous seeds of recent corruption where planted by Clinton, repeal of Glass-Steagall &

the legalizing of derivatives. The horrid and evil W and Greenspan (a truly evil fucker too) did nothing if not to pour even more petrol on the bonfires of fraud. Obama so far is still reaching for that same can.

:thumbsdown:

[Enthusiast]

27. K&R Love Matt Taibbi! nt

[fasttense]

28. So Goldman runs a scam on its clients, gets the bushes to bail them out,

Lies to Congress about it, then our justice department does NOTHING.

Wow, if that is not the perfect description of a Banana Republic, I do not know what it is. Our Attorney General has now added his name to the list of corrupt federal government employees.

[City Lights]

29. K&R! nt

[Armstead]

32. arrrrgh

[TheUnspeakable]

33. k&r

[Hotler]

34. k&r n/t

[Overseas]

36. K&R!

Look forward to reading the full story.

[MasonJar]

37. Unfortunately the Justice Dept. does not like controversy. This could be

the making of the Dems, but they won't take it because they also get big contributions. The American people are left overs to the DCers.

[bullwinkle428]

38. K&R. And yet, there are still a few here that insist that these guys

did absolutely nothing wrong! :mad:

[loudsue]

39. This SOOO needs to see the light of day.

And we need to put pressure on the media AND our congresscritters to make sure this gets talk-show time. It's the ONLY way to put pressure on.

We need to walk like some Egyptians.

K & R

[felix_numinous]

40. Matt Tibbi needs an award.

I hope all the dirt (or skeletons) are dug up on Goldman Sachs.

:popcorn: mmm good!

[NCcoast]

53. Agreed

The man is a national treasure.

[malaise]

41. Excellent Matt

K & R

[Hubert Flottz]

44. K&R

[blackspade]

46. Painful to read.

Mainly because the Justice Dept. will do nothing.

[Mopar151]

47. I plan on forwarding this to my congressscritters ASAP

Ms. Ayotte already has some ugly baggage around this issue on the state level.

[raouldukelives]

50. K&R

[KoKo]

51. Kick

[Kurovski]

54. K&R

:puke:

[wiggs]

56. Justice Dept is independent of the other two branches. But can any of the branches

recommend pursuit of legal action? Can the senate refer something to the Justice Dept if they want? Can they request or demand an investigation? Can they ask the POTUS to request an investigation?

Can the massive amount of evidence become the basis of a large class action lawsuit by anyone or any business harmed by their fraud?

Seems like there might be multiple pathways for justice here...I wonder what the endgame is. I wonder if the powers that be are waiting for the economy to get a little better footing, then start regulating and prosecuting the industry like they are supposed to.

[smokey nj]

57. Kick!

[TrollBuster9090]

59. Thank goodness for the Senate "Shitty Deal" commission!

Now, if only we had Eliot Spitzer as the AG, we'd see something done about it. But, alas, I don't think anything will happen.

What amazes me is that George HW Bush did more to regulate the financial industry after the Savings and Loan Scandal than the current batch of spineless Democrats intend to do. I don't know what they're afraid of. Haven't they looked at the WallStreet political donations lately???

Wall Street used to donate 60/40 in favor of Democrats. In the last election cycle, thanks to the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act, they gave about 90% of their money to the GOP. Listen up, Democrats: WALL STREET IS ALREADY PLANNING TO DONATE ALL OF THEIR MONEY TO THE GOP THIS TIME AROUND, AND THERE IS NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT. You've got nothing MORE to lose, YOU MAY AS WELL DO SOME GOOD FOR THE PEOPLE FOR A CHANGE. Create a Consumer Protection Agency with some legislative teeth, put Warren at the head of it, prosecute some Wall Street crooks and send them to CLUB FED, make them personally liable for the theft, and get the money back by selling their assets.

[ooglymoogly]

60. I'm sure all the crooked holdover attorneys that "curiously" did not get fired

were part of the deal Obama made to let him past the gatekeepers. They, the pug attorneys, are the steal, um steel safety net for BOOsh et al, the neocons and the blackmailing thugs of Wall st who pull the strings on congress and all the other branches of gubmunt.