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Goldman Sachs: Making Money by Stealing It
Its business model is grand theft.
by Stephen Lendman
Money power in private hands and democracy can't co-exist. Wall Street crooks transformed America into an unprecedented money making racket.
Goldman symbolizes master of the universe manipulative fraud. It's been involved in nearly all financial scandals since the 19th century.
It makes money the old-fashioned way. It steals it through fraud, grand theft, market manipulation, front-running them, scamming investors, bribing political Washington, having its executives in top administration posts, and getting open-ended low or no interest rate bailouts when needed.
It's business model and culture assure billions of bonus dollars for company officials, complicit traders, and others on the take. It's a crime family, not a bank. It's connected to others like it on Wall Street and corrupt politicians.
Compared to Goldman, Bernie Madoff was small-time. So are most other swindlers. Ones who matter most sit in Wall Street board rooms, plotting other scams.
Former bank regulator expert on white-collar crime, public finance, economics, and related law, Bill Black explained Goldman shenanigans pertaining to earlier SEC charges this way:
"Goldman designed a rigged trifecta. It turned a massive loss into a material profit by selling deeply underwater, toxic CDOs it owned. It helped make John Paulson (CEO of a huge hedge fund that Goldman would love to have as an ally) a massive profit - in a 'profession' where reciprocal favors are key, and blew up its customers that purchased the CDOs."
An SEC civil suit charged Goldman with defrauding customers. It made billions, and settled for $550 million. It was pocket change, the equivalent of four 2009 revenue days. It hardly mattered.
No executive was fined or imprisoned. Grand theft continues unabated. They include fraudulent pump-and-dump schemes. Major media scoundrels don't explain. Only scammed customers and insiders part of the dirty game understand.
On March 4, Black used James Q. Wilson's "broken windows" metaphor pertaining to blue collar crime. He applied it to far more serious elite white-collar offenses. None rise to the level of financial ones. The amounts involved are staggering. Broken lives, communities, and economies result. The landscape's littered with them.
No firm's more adept at amassing fraudulent fortunes than Goldman. Its CEO Lloyd Blankfein calls it "doing God's work." It's hard imagining greater arrogance. It's harder knowing the Supreme Court ruled banks and other financial entities immune from securities fraud by those harmed. Only Washington may sue for redress.
It's also appalling that Murdoch's Wall Street Journal "serve(s) as cheerleader and apologist for those" who amass wealth by stealing it, said Black.
Goldman Executive Resigns
