When can we trust banks? - Goldman Sachs Sued by SEC

Washington, D.C., April 16, 2010 — "The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged Goldman, Sachs & Co. and one of its vice presidents for defrauding investors by misstating and omitting key facts about a financial product tied to subprime mortgages as the U.S. housing market was beginning to falter.


The SEC alleges that one of the world's largest hedge funds, Paulson & Co., paid Goldman Sachs to structure a transaction in which Paulson & Co. could take short positions against mortgage securities chosen by Paulson & Co. based on a belief that the securities would experience credit events."


 See full article at:

 http://sec.gov/news/press/2010/2010-59.htm


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Last year at  Goldman Sachs the  bonus pool on  was $16.2 billion.  This  amounts to an average of just under $500,000 per employee.



All that bonus money - Goldman gave its people, should be returned.  If the charges by the SEC are true, Goldman  did not earn their money honestly. They committed fraud.  


They will need that bonus  money for their legal problems, and hopefully they will have to pay back people who were cheated.


I think its clear there is too much manipulation, corruption and general screwing around with other peoples' money on Wall Street. 


Bernie Maddoff ruined many lives. He went to jail.  And his wife and family kept most of their fortune.  This was not right.  They all should have gone to jail, his wife, his sons, and his brother.  They all knew what Bernie was up too, what he was doing. The SEC screwed up too.  They failed to act on whistler blowers.


Time will tell if the SEC has a good case against Goldman. 


Hedge funds - Selling short -  Lack of insider disclosures all wrong. All risky business,  huge profits and in the end, many investors get screwed.


Every one is free to make a profit.  A big profit.  But you have to do it legally. We are living among many, many cheaters.  Investing has risks, but the deck is stacked against us.  Its unfair,  and many cases not legal. These cheats should not just be fined.  They should go to jail.


I am a little investor. And I don't have a prayer.  The odds are stacked against me and others.   If Obama reform increases the tax rate on dividends and capital gains, and I am affected, I will sell my stock, and get into other kind of investments.


I cannot beat them. I cannot join them. So I will leave them.

Bart Stupak - Obama Care Sacrificial Lamb

Rep. Bart Stupak (D, MI) has announced he will retire at the end of his term.
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"Stupak, who had played a central role in the House's passage of President Obama's healthcare legislation, had demanded antiabortion language in the bill. Instead of that, he won an executive order from the president stating that nothing in the healthcare bill that Obama signed would override an existing ban on federal funding for abortions.

 http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/dcnow/2010/04/stupak-retiring-tea-party-fight-averted.htmld

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The Democrats needed Stupak's vote to pass the healthcare bill.  So he sacrificed  his career for the good of the party.  How pathetic, how lame.  What sad case.

What else did he do?  He scarified  his  religious convictions for the party.

He says its time to leave, to retire,  he wants to do new things.  Bye, Bye Bart.

Obama the Wonderful has done it again.

NPR has reported on April 8, 2010.

The U.S. and Russia signed their first strategic arms treaty in nearly two decades on Thursday, aiming to draw down their nuclear arsenals by as much as one-third while forging improved relations between the former Cold War rivals.

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Obama has made another mess.

He thinks he can change  the world as he sees it, not as it is.  He is living in La La Land.  He thinks if we are nice to our enemies, they will be nice to us.

Does he think China will reduce their weapons for us?


This treaty and if passed, will not make the world safer.  It will make us weaker.

This President is so naive, so inexperienced, so ill advised, so weak, it is pathetic.

Almost every day he stirs the pot.  He just has to mess with somebody or some thing.