Saturday, April 17, 2010

Connecticut Considering Investigation Into Goldman Sachs Fraud

Connecticut's attorney general has seemingly been hot on Wall Street's tail for a few years now as have a few states. I'm not sure how the legalities across state lines would work but is there some potential that attorney generals across the U.S. could start a wave of investigations and suits against Wall Street given their deep involvement in shoveling many of their Ponzi schemes across state lines? The attorney general does not give details of what Connecticut laws may have been violated but I would assume the same could be made across many states. And I don't know what the litmus test for violation of a particular state's laws would be but I would assume if any particular product had a component originated in a particular state, that might be grounds for that state's involvement. In other words as an example, if a bundled set of mortgages came from 33 states, would all states have legitimate legal grounds were there to be wrongdoing found involving that tranche or bundle of mortgages?

This case is really somewhat disappointing in its scope but we'll see where this leads. In other words, we have been writing since starting this blog that Wall Street has been trading against its clients. And that they were often de-emphasizing their retail business and moving to a model of proprietary trading. So, regardless of this specific claim made by the SEC, the reality is Wall Street's entire proprietary trading model is now predicated on trading without concern and often outright against their clients. And as we have remarked incessantly, they are using society's money to do it. Additionally, the SEC has developed a pattern over the past few decades of charging Wall Street in civil actions without pursuing criminal penalty. Corporations are run by people. Corporations do not commit fraud. People do. Fraud is a criminal matter not a civil matter. I would imagine this could possibly pick up pressure within the courts to involve criminal charges given the populist backlash against Wall Street crooks. That would surely be against the will of the political idiots in Washington who would like a few slaps on Wall Street's wrists then go back to the status quo, but the courts aren't run by political idiots.

A perfect example of the pervasive betting against clients is when we highlighted Goldman was recommending their clients bet against California in the bond market given the state's economic and fiscal trouble. This is outright example of trading against their client because the state of California is in fact a client of Goldman Sachs. Not only that, but it is treasonous for a taxpayer-backed financial institution to be betting against the United States on any matter. That is really using public money to bet against the United States of America. If that is not treason, then what the hell is? Of course as we have highlighted, Wall Street has been betting against the United States for decades.

Link here.
posted by TimingLogic at 9:31 AM