Cid_MCDP 0 Posted January 23, 2010 Share Posted January 23, 2010 Happy, I want a list of the blogs and news sites you read. You always post the most interesting stuff. For reals, BTW- no sarcasm intended. That's just the BBC I'm not at work where I have other bookmarks, but here at home I've got.... http://www.nation.com.pk/ http://rebelreports.com/ http://www.juancole.com/ http://www.chomsky.info/articles.htm http://www.newstatesman.com/writers/john_pilger http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/ http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/ http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/ http://www.democracynow.org/ I'm a lefty liberal Danke! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ewerk 31202 Posted January 25, 2010 Share Posted January 25, 2010 Goldman Sachs UK partners cap their pay at £1m each Goldman Sachs' 100 UK-based partners are capping their 2009 pay and bonuses at £1m each, the BBC has learned. BBC business editor Robert Peston said it represented a significant sacrifice of several hundred million pounds. One executive said they wanted to be seen to be exercising the restraint which the Chancellor of the Exchequer has sought from all bankers. Many executives working in Britain ranked below partner-level, however, will earn much more than £1m each. The company did not feel it could insist they take a pay cut, because that might have damaged its ability to recruit and retain more able bankers, Mr Peston said. Strong trading Goldman will pay many hundreds of millions of pounds in bonuses to staff ranked below partner-level. Its employees will be told this week precisely how much each of them earned for the firm's near-record trading performance in 2009. Goldman will be paying many hundreds of millions of pounds in bonuses to staff ranked below the level of partner who are based in Britain. Robert Peston, BBC business editor Read Robert Peston's blog The big British banks, Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland, have not yet fixed the size of their employees' bonuses. However Barclays has decided its top executives will receive 75% of their bonuses - and 100% for the most senior people - in staggered payments over three years. The UK watchdog, the Financial Services Authority, is vetting all bonus payments worth more than £1m for British-based bankers. The FSA is insisting at least 60% of such payments should be deferred for up to three years. Mr Peston said bankers he had spoken to were still reeling from President Barack Obama's announcement he wanted to limit bank sizes and force them out of a series of activities. These include hedge funds, private equity and proprietary trading, which the president regards as too risky and speculative. Bankers plan to fight the reforms though, with a lobbying effort that will begin at this week's World Economic Forum at Davos in Switzerland attended by business leaders and politicians. "I really wouldn't assume that Obama will get this stuff through Congress," said one banker. British-based bankers said Obama's reforms have slightly lessened their ire at the British government over the imposition of its bonus tax. "With regard to Darling's tax, the way I would put it is that it is like finding out your wife has been having an affair - you forgive her, but you never forget," said one banker. This weekend Alistair Darling said in an interview with the Sunday Times he is unenthusiastic about President Obama's plans to break up banks and limit their size. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Park Life 71 Posted January 25, 2010 Share Posted January 25, 2010 Hedge funds and investment banks caused the last crisis. Lending banks can be left alone I'd imagine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy Face 29 Posted January 25, 2010 Author Share Posted January 25, 2010 (edited) Looks like Geithner is out on his ear... http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...0012104935.html Obama laying the blame after the event or truly seeking a change in policy? The rumours are that Rahm Emanuel is close to the edge too. It would amaze and impress me if he got the chop. Edited January 25, 2010 by Happy Face Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChezGiven 0 Posted January 25, 2010 Share Posted January 25, 2010 Maybe the people of Massachussets are more clever than i gave them credit for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Park Life 71 Posted January 25, 2010 Share Posted January 25, 2010 Looks like Geithner is out on his ear... http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...0012104935.html Obama laying the blame after the event or truly seeking a change in policy? The rumours are that Rahm Emanuel is close to the edge too. It would amaze and impress me if he got the chop. About time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChezGiven 0 Posted April 17, 2010 Share Posted April 17, 2010 Happy Face, you are slipping mate. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8625931.stm Massive move from the SEC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy Face 29 Posted April 17, 2010 Author Share Posted April 17, 2010 Happy Face, you are slipping mate. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8625931.stm Massive move from the SEC. Posted it in the election thread mate http://www.toontastic.net/board/index.php?...st&p=731754 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Park Life 71 Posted April 17, 2010 Share Posted April 17, 2010 Shoot the fuking lot of em. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy Face 29 Posted April 17, 2010 Author Share Posted April 17, 2010 The SEC's court document quotes an email from Mr Tourre to a friend in January 2007. "More and more leverage in the system. Only potential survivor, the fabulous Fab[rice Tourre]... standing in the middle of all these complex, highly leveraged, exotic trades he created without necessarily understanding all of the implications of those monstrosities!!!" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt 0 Posted April 17, 2010 Share Posted April 17, 2010 This could be very enjoyable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Park Life 71 Posted April 19, 2010 Share Posted April 19, 2010 Gordon Brown and Angela Merkel attack Goldman Sachs Bank under pressure amid claims it misled clients as PM calls for investigation and threatens bonus ban The New York headquarters of Goldman Sachs. Photograph: Justin Lane/EPA A crisis gripping Goldman Sachs deepened today as Britain and Germany moved towards joining the US in pursuing a fraud investigation against the Wall Street bank for allegedly fiddling clients out of $1bn ($650m) through a misleading mortgage investment deal. Gordon Brown ordered a special investigation into Goldman, accusing the bank of "moral bankruptcy". He threatened to block multimillion-pound bonus payouts if the firm is found guilty of wrongdoing. In Berlin, Angela Merkel's government said it had sought information from the US Securities and Exchange Commission with a view to evaluating "legal steps" against Goldman. Goldman's shares dived by 13% on Friday when the SEC charged the firm with collaborating with a hedge fund, Paulson & Co, to sell a deliberately skewed package of doomed mortgages in 2007, leaving clients including Royal Bank of Scotland and a German bank, IKB, nursing losses of more than $1bn. Paulson & Co made a fortune out of the deal by taking a short position to bet on the package's demise. A London-based Goldman Sachs director, Fabrice Tourre, who is accused of masterminding the fraud, is still working as usual, although efforts by Sunday newspapers to track the Frenchman down to his flat near Sadler's Wells theatre in north London were unsuccessful. A Goldman spokeswoman said: "He's still an employee. He hasn't been suspended." The case against Goldman has sent a ripple through the financial services industry, with analysts predicting it could be the first of many against similarly structured mortgage instruments known as collateralised debt obligations. The SEC's action took place amid wrangling in Congress over an overhaul of Wall Street regulation, where Republicans object to the scope of moves proposed by the administration. Goldman could face fresh opprobrium on Tuesday, when it is due to publish its financial results for the first quarter of the year and is forecast to reveal revenue of more than $10bn – of which nearly $5bn could be earmarked for employee pay. Brown told the BBC's Andrew Marr show that the case against Goldman fuelled his argument for a global tax on financial transactions: "I am shocked at this moral bankruptcy. This is probably one of the worst cases that we have seen. "It makes me absolutely determined we are going to have a new global constitution for the banking system which I am pressing for, a global financial levy for the banks that all countries that are major financial centres pay, and we quash remuneration packages such as Goldman Sachs'." Goldman vehemently denies any wrongdoing. The bank argues that it lost money itself on the mortgage deal, and that the clients involved were savvy investors. A source close to Goldman dismissed Brown's comments as electioneering: "It's no surprise, given that we're in the middle of an election campaign, that being tough on banks is popular." The Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman, Matthew Oakeshott, called for Tourre to be suspended following the "earth-shattering" allegations. The Tories also called for a crackdown. Goldman's mortgage package was insured against default by Royal Bank of Scotland. Within nine months, 99% of the home loans involved had been downgraded, leaving RBS with an $841m bill. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NJS 4411 Posted April 19, 2010 Share Posted April 19, 2010 Packaging the shit debt together knowing it was likely to fail is bad enough - collaborating with another firm who took a position on that failure is fucking blatant. I think they've relied for years on the fraud police not understanding the business - that's one thing that should be easy to fix. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy Face 29 Posted April 19, 2010 Author Share Posted April 19, 2010 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Park Life 71 Posted April 19, 2010 Share Posted April 19, 2010 $20bn dollar fine would be nice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy Face 29 Posted April 19, 2010 Author Share Posted April 19, 2010 $20bn dollar fine would be nice. You think that low? Their revenue is double that. AIG got $40bn because Goldman would have otherwise squeezed them out of business to get their money, and Goldman themselves took $10bn+ in bailout money. They'll get a slap on the wrists. What would be the point in spending trillions to keep them afloat....then hammering them 2 years down the line? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NJS 4411 Posted April 19, 2010 Share Posted April 19, 2010 The get-out clause is that they've named one trader - he'll carry the carry if there is one and the management will escape as usual. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy Face 29 Posted April 20, 2010 Author Share Posted April 20, 2010 and again..... US bank Goldman Sachs has seen its profit for the first quarter of 2010 nearly double. The bank reported net earnings of $3.46bn (£2.25bn) for the three months to March, up from $1.8bn a year ago. Goldman also revealed that it paid its employees about $5.5bn in compensation, equivalent to 43% of its revenue. Earlier, the UK's Financial Services Authority announced a formal enforcement investigation into the bank regarding recent fraud allegations. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8631722.stm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChezGiven 0 Posted April 20, 2010 Share Posted April 20, 2010 GS were not the only players, of course. http://www.propublica.org/feature/all-the-...-housing-bubble Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChezGiven 0 Posted April 20, 2010 Share Posted April 20, 2010 Good video on CDOs for those interested. http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display...uncorking_cdos/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy Face 29 Posted April 20, 2010 Author Share Posted April 20, 2010 Goldman's newest lobbyist is Gregory Craig. President Barack Obama’s former White House counsel. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0410/36056.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Park Life 71 Posted April 20, 2010 Share Posted April 20, 2010 Think they will get taken down a good peg or two this time round as they by accident hurt the ruling elite. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChezGiven 0 Posted April 25, 2010 Share Posted April 25, 2010 Matt Taibbi's conclusion to this article is interesting. http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/ap...ve-greed-is-god Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaddockLad 17654 Posted April 25, 2010 Share Posted April 25, 2010 Matt Taibbi's conclusion to this article is interesting. http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/ap...ve-greed-is-god aye, or another way of putting it is "who truly runs things in the world?....the nominally elected governments or a few bankers?...." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt 0 Posted April 25, 2010 Share Posted April 25, 2010 (edited) The comparison with the car salesman is a good one and certainly provides some framing of the morality of the Abacus transaction, given reaction in the US to faulty Toyotas. From Paulson's perspective, he simply made a very good deal. If everyone had made the same deductions as he, then no-one would have been interested in the other side of the deal and therefore no transaction would ever have taken place. If the bonds were certain to default, they would have already been worthless. Despite the dubious intention of GS and the individuals in question, chasing them won't stop this kind of thing happening again. Regulation is still looking slow and ponderous. If you create a system which allows such vast sums to be created in this way then we really should not be surprised that sharp tactics come into play in what is a very competitive arena. The key is protecting investors and the core financial system. I'm don't care much for Lib Dem assertion that investment banking is akin to the spin of the roulette wheel, but I cannot see how insuring these sorts of structures is in any way appropriate for a retail deposit-taking bank (as ABN Amro was/is). Edited April 25, 2010 by Matt Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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