Goldman Sachs fined $5 billion but is Still Above the Law

Goldman Sachs fined $5 billion but is Still Above the Law

Posted on January 17, 2016 by Martin Armstrong

Goldman Sachs is finally paying a price (money) for the role it played in 2007 mortgage scandal, but of course nobody goes to jail proving Goldman still remains above the law. The Wall Street firm agreed to only a civil settlement of up to $5 billion with federal prosecutors and regulators arising from it marketing and selling of known faulty mortgage securities to investors they created. Goldman Sachs announced:
Under the terms of the agreement in principle, the firm will pay a $2.385 billion civil monetary penalty, make $875 million in cash payments and provide $1.8 billion in consumer relief. The consumer relief will be in the form of principal forgiveness for underwater homeowners and distressed borrowers; financing for construction, rehabilitation and preservation of affordable housing; and support for debt restructuring, foreclosure prevention and housing quality improvement programs, as well as land banks.

The number one question we always get is why are the regulators and prosecutors so damn corrupt? Besides the bankers being in a position to blackmail politicians that if they are not bailed out, nobody will sell their debt, then the real problem is they buy the prosecutors and regulators. How? They hire the government lawyers who are suppose to be regulating them. This even includes staff of politicians who actually write the legislation. This is known as the revolving door. It is different where Rubin and Paulson were CEOs of Goldman Sachs who then became Secretary of the Treasury and left after they did what they had to do for the banks. This corruption ensures that there will never be any real criminal prosecution of the bankers. They are indeed always ABOVE the law. Why not? They pay for that privilege and Congress will never outlaw the revolving door because they too want to be rewarded for their dishonesty since they know this is the game and they pretend it is an outrage but silently condone it for decades. This is why we can no longer afford career politicians. No matter what country, we need to get rid of career politicians to save our own future.
The movie the Big Short (I highly recommend seeing twice) has a scene where a girl from the SEC is seeking a job from Goldman Sachs when she is supposed to be the regulator. Then the rating agencies SELL ratings. For any other field it is criminal activity and called bribery. They too did not go to jail. It has become standard operational procedure for those especially in New York City.
 
In our case, the SEC lawyer who started the prosecution, picks the law firm for the receiver O’Melveny & Myers, and then quits the SEC and becomes a partner in the very firm he selected. There is case law on this that says this is illegal. Whenever I raised the point even to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, they just ignore it. Law is ONLY for those of us who never worked in government. Everyone else, we are the food the legal system feeds on to pretend they are protecting society when they prey upon it.

The receiver Alan Cohen seizes all the tapes and evidence we had on criminal activity among the NY banks documenting every manipulation of markets, and then protected them. I believe he was rewarded and given a board membership at Goldman Sachs, yet NEVER resigns from the court. So he worked for the court running Princeton Economics from the boardroom of Goldman Sachs. Another amazing conflict of interest the judges would never address.
Perhaps we should change our name to Goldman Sachs, Jr. and that way any fines you pay are also tax-deductible when nobody else gets that privilege and everyone is exempt from prosecution. Interesting when government prosecutors come with their own price tag.
Even after pleading criminally guilty last time, the NY bankers were given not just a Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free card, the SEC, who should have taken their licenses, exempted them. So when they talk about preventing felons from various things, of course the bankers are felons, but are always exempt.
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