Tag: Goldman Sachs

Categories
News

SEC Brings A Lamb To The Slaughter For The Mortage Crisis

The sacrificial lamb that is Goldman Sachs banker Fabrice Tourre. 


Whew! We can all breathe a sigh of relief now that the financial crisis is over. The Securities and Exchange Commission has found former Goldman Sachs banker Fabrice Tourre liable on six counts of securities fraud.

I’m being sarcastic of course.

Fabrice Tourre

Mr. Tourre dealt out toxic mortgage deals under a company known as Abacus (you remember them home loan borrowers), which Goldman Sachs created in 2007 at the request of hedge-fund manager John Paulson. Paulson wanted to use the fund to bet against it, which he did considerably, garnishing him $15 billion before the Home Loans Crisis officially hit the fan and the news.

Suspiciously not on trial in the case was Goldman Sachs itself, although the bank paid all of Tourre’s legal fees, which was the least it could do for its sacrificial lamb. Earlier in 2010 Sachs settled with the SEC by paying a $550 million penalty without ever having to admit any wrongdoing.

A jury found that Tourre had misled investors about the nature of the deal, tricking them into thinking it had not been built for failure from the start. He now faces the possibility of heavy financial penalties and a lifetime ban from the securities industry.

 A hollow victory in the wake of all the terminal damage to our economy that was caused.

Categories
Economic growth Politics Republican

Republicans Say “It’s All About Jobs,” So They Will Cut 700,000 More

When John Boehner said, “if we lose 200,000 federal jobs, so be it,” we listened and thought the figures didn’t add up. A little  research into the facts revealed the figure was more like 20,000 to 40,000 jobs lost if Boehner got his way.

Now, after economists studied the Republican budget and the effects of it’s cutting $61 billion dollars from it, the result – as reported by  financial economists – would be a job loss of 700,000 by the end of 2012.

According to reports from The Washington Post;

Zandi, an architect of the 2009 stimulus package who has advised both political parties, predicts that the GOP package would reduce economic growth by 0.5 percentage points this year, and by 0.2 percentage points in 2012, resulting in 700,000 fewer jobs by the end of next year.

His report comes on the heels of a similar analysis last week by the investment bank Goldman Sachs, which predicted that the Republican spending cuts would cause even greater damage to the economy, slowing growth by as much as 2 percentage points in the second and third quarters of this year.

Of course, Republicans stand by their claims that cutting $61 billion will create jobs and put America back on its financially feet. And of course, they’re the only ones believing this claim.

Maybe more appropriate for Boehner would be to claim, “Losing 700,000 jobs because of our budget and 200,000 federal jobs? Whatever!  I must keep a campaign promise, so be it!”

Read the rest of the Washington Post report here.

Exit mobile version