The Secret Goldman Sachs Tapes "The Ray Rice Video For The Financial Sector Has Arrived"

[kpete]

From the link: "How Segarra got herself fired by the Fed is interesting. In 2012, Goldman was rebuked by a Delaware judge for its behavior during a corporate acquisition. Goldman had advised one energy company, El Paso Corp., as it sold itself to another energy company, Kinder Morgan, in which Goldman actually owned a $4 billion stake, and a Goldman banker had a big personal investment. The incident forced the Fed to ask Goldman to see its conflict of interest policy. It turned out that Goldman had no conflict of interest policy -- but when Segarra insisted on saying as much in her report, her bosses tried to get her to change her report. Under pressure, she finally agreed to change the language in her report, but she couldn't resist telling her boss that she wouldn't be changing her mind. Shortly after that encounter, she was fired."

Inside the New York Fed: Secret Recordings and a Culture Clash

A confidential report and a fired examiner’s hidden recorder penetrate the cloistered world of Wall Street’s top regulator—and its history of deference to banks.

http://www.propublica.org/article/carmen-segarras-secret-recordings-from-inside-new-york-fed
.....................



today -- Friday, Sept. 26 --- the radio program "This American Life" will air a jaw-dropping story about Wall Street regulation, and the public will have no trouble at all understanding it:

The reporter, Jake Bernstein, has obtained 46 hours of tape recordings, made secretly by a Federal Reserve employee, of conversations within the Fed, and between the Fed and Goldman Sachs. The Ray Rice video for the financial sector has arrived.

..............

It's an extraordinary document. There is not space here to do it justice, but the gist is this: The Fed failed to regulate the banks because it did not encourage its employees to ask questions, to speak their minds or to point out problems.

Just the opposite: The Fed encourages its employees to keep their heads down, to obey their managers and to appease the banks. That is, bank regulators failed to do their jobs properly not because they lacked the tools but because they were discouraged from using them.

......................




MORE:
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-09-26/the-secret-goldman-sachs-tapes
http://www.propublica.org/article/carmen-segarras-secret-recordings-from-inside-new-york-fed

ProPublica's Jake Bernstein tells the story of Carmen's first months at the New York Fed, and how she came to start recording. And we hear the story of how the Fed examiners respond to an unusual, questionable deal that Goldman Sachs did -- a deal that the top Fed guy stationed inside Goldman calls "legal but shady."

This story was co-published with This American Life, from WBEZ Chicago.

Hear the radio version on these stations or download the episode now.

HERE: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/536/the-secret-recordings-of-carmen-segarra

[myrna minx]

1. K&r

Bookmarking

[pscot]

2. K&R

[jakeXT]

3. K&R

[tosh]

4. Bookmarking.

Thanks!

[yurbud]

5. these guys could eat live babies on the White House lawn and none of them would get prison time

[valerief]

7. ^^^THIS^^^

[yurbud]

22. and the Obama administration would send out napkins and ask what they would like for dessert

[BrotherIvan]

31. That was the plan

Trojan horse

[valerief]

6. But what will be the Fed equivalent of a two-game suspension? nt

[bonniebgood]

8. A slap on each rist? nt

[lumberjack_jeff]

18. A few tens of billions.

It's hard to imagine the scale of the scam. They're essentially empowered to invent money, and keep it.

[FairWinds]

9. In case you are not aware . .

Goldman Sachs is heavily invested in crooked for-profit higher
education. They prey upon and target the vulnerable and naive . .
such as your kids.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/14/goldman-sachs-for-profit-college_n_997409.html

[cui bono]

10. Seems that a lot of the financial collapse was due to people not being allowed to do their jobs.

Well, indiscriminately handing out stated-income loans is part of it. A weak underwriting system is another element. In the case in Sacramento, the court heard testimony from an underwriter at one of the mortgage firms in question and learned that in certain cases she was actually forbidden to ask the borrower’s employer how much the borrower made—in other words, forbidden to check on the income that was stated in the stated-income loan.
...
This was an utter sham in which underwriters were instructed not to underwrite. They were instructed, according to the testimony, that even if they called the employer, had them on the phone, that they were not permitted to ask about the income.
...
The obvious way for the federal prosecutors to head off this argument would have been to describe the lender’s business practices and show that its executives were not, in fact, simply churning out vast numbers of super-high-risk liar’s loans in order to ring some bonus bell. That, in truth, the bankers really cared that facts be represented accurately on loan applications. Unfortunately, the Federal agent who had investigated the case—a man with plenty of experience detecting mortgage fraud—told the court that he had not talked to executives at the firms in question and, indeed, had not interviewed any top mortgage executives, ever.

http://www.salon.com/2014/09/07/finally_wall_street_gets_put_on_trial_we_can_still_hold_the_0_1_percent_responsible_for_tanking_the_economy/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

[KoKo]

17. Indeed...and not much has been corrected, sadly. n/t

[calimary]

19. It reminds me of every republi-CON who's ever run for office or campaigned for a ballot

measure - who says "We Don't NEED this new (regulation, law, rule, restriction, fill-in-the-blank-here). We should JUST EnFORCE the Laws we ALREADY HAAAAAAAVE!"

Okay, so fine. Then what they do immediately after the dust is settled is promptly defund or de-fang those "Laws we ALREADY HAAAAAAVE" so they're completely neutered and do nothing. OR they make sure the department enforcing them is cut back severely so agents and caseworkers and inspectors and watchdogs and investigators get their hours cut or their jobs eliminated or they stay but they lose most if not all their staffers. So yeah, you may still have a shell of that old law we "ALREADY HAAAAAAVE" in place, but it's exactly like King Neptune after the monster Ursula got ahold of him in the "Little Mermaid" movie. She turned him from a muscle-bound king into a shriveled-up little worm.

GOD I hate republi-CONS!!!!!

[Electric Monk]

24. Gun nuts play the same disgusting games

k&r

[Duppers]

50. ++ many. nt

[fasttense]

43. After listening to the full show

I believe the Fed regulators are serving no practical purpose and the whole office should be closed and everyone fired. At least they would be saving some tax money that way. Right now they are totally useless.

[Octafish]

11. ''It turned out Goldman had no conflict of interest policy.''

Now I get it.

[Aerows]

14. The only conflict of interest policy

Goldman-Sachs has is if its interests are in conflict with regulations, ignore the regulations!

[Octafish]

27. I like how they were able to represent both parties...

...the buyers and the sellers. Nothing like being the middleman. It's where the Mafia works, too.

[Aerows]

28. With HFT

They can capture a trade for a client wanting to sell before the trade is executed and sell it themselves a bit higher, then execute the client trade a little lower and glean profit from it. They also do it in reverse with buying themselves before the transaction, then the client buys at a higher price.

Thieves.

[nationalize the fed]

46. The difference is...

The Mafia understands Respect

[librechik]

12. I'm waiting for this story to disappear

quicker than 400, 000 protestors in the street.

[adirondacker]

25. +400,000 ! nt

[liberal_at_heart]

30. I think what happened to Occupy should have been a bigger story.

How are we supposed to change things if we are not allowed to peacefully assemble. What would have happened in the sixties if we as a country had not been allowed to protest? Our own party(oh I'm sorry my former party) wouldn't let its own citizens peacefully protest. I can't even wrap my head around that. How is this okay? I can't even count the number of reasons the democratic party no longer represents my values. This party is unrecognizable. It's almost like it's a completely different party than what it used to be.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

13. K&R nt

[benld74]

15. A conflict of interest policy in this case would mean

the institution actually had business ethics

[2banon]

16. Thanks for posting.. read about 1/2 through. Are the Secret Recordings links available?

Will try and remember to listen to TAL first opportunity. But I'm wondering if the Propublica or TAL have linked those recordings for public consumption?

[progressoid]

21. You can listen to it online here:

This American Life: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/536/the-secret-recordings-of-carmen-segarra#play

[2banon]

37. Thanks for that.. just finished listening and reading disclaimers by the Fed and GS

of the responses were exactly as one would expect given the level of corruption, co-opted judges etc. fascinating slice of the history.

[sendero]

20. 99% of Americans..

... have no clue what the Federal Reserve is, how it has fucked up our economy, and how nothing is going to be done about it, ever.

Yawn.

[Duppers]

51. ++++++

That's the real problem. Clueless, apathetic people and FoxNoise.


"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
- Thomas Jefferson

[KansDem]

23. Kay 'n Ray...nt

[Man from Pickens]

26. So the Federal Reserve, a technically private entity owned by its member banks...

didn't properly regulate those banks?

I'm shocked (shocked!) to find gambling going on in this establishment!

[Aerows]

29. You could have knocked me over with a feather.

[2banon]

38. lol! :)

[Aerows]

41. Good to see you, my friend

[2banon]

42. Back-at-cha!

[liberal_at_heart]

32. +1

[Doctor_J]

33. I wonder if this is why Holder is packing it in

So he won't have to follow through on this slam-dunk indictment of his Wall St pals.

[JEB]

34. K&R&bookmark

[blackspade]

35. K&R.

I hope this gets as much traction as the Rice scandal.

[fleabiscuit]

36. K&R n/t

[WestSeattle2]

39. Throw the bankers in prison, ten year

minimums; fire the federal workers for gross incompetence and dereliction of duty; throw the board of directors, all of them, in prison for five years. Every single one in the aforementioned groups knows damn well how corrupt and seedy the banking industry is. Not a one of them can claim ignorance. They are all guilty as charged.

Repeat as necessary.

[Catch2.2]

40. Sadly....

Nothing will probably come of this and we will for sure not hear about it on the news.

[daleanime]

44. K&R....

[rhett o rick]

45. I would like to point out that the Powers That Be's choice for president in 2016 is in deep

with Goldman-Sachs-O-Gold.

[JDPriestly]

47. Excellent point!

[cantbeserious]

49. None Other Than 1% Appeaser HRC

Hillary Clinton's Goldman Sachs Problem

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/06/hillary-clintons-goldman-sachs-problem

[rhett o rick]

56. You have a lot of nerve linking to a David Corn article. I am surprised you haven't yet been

smote.

The Clintons are an excellent example of American Aristocrats that pretend to have compassion for the masses. I can picture HRC saying, "Let them eat pizza." They are generous via charity which I assume reduces their taxes. The American masses need jobs and protection from the vultures of Wall Street.

It's critical that we take control of our country away from the American Aristocrats.

[woo me with science]

48. kick

[Duppers]

52. Where's Eliot Spitzer when you need him.

Thanks for posting this, Kpete.

[hwmnbn]

53. K&R

[Octafish]

54. Substantiates Neil BAROFSKY

Neil Barofsky Gave Us The Best Explanation For Washington's Dysfunction We've Ever Heard

Linette Lopez
Business Insider, Aug. 1, 2012, 2:57 PM

Neil Barofsky was the Inspector General for TARP, and just wrote a book about his time in D.C. called Bailout: An Insider Account of How Washington Abandoned Main Street While Rescuing Wall Street.

SNIP...

Bottom line: Barofsky said the incentive structure in our nation's capitol is all wrong. There's a revolving door between bureaucrats in Washington and Wall Street banks, and politicians just want to keep their jobs.

For regulators it's something like this:

[font color="green"]"You can play ball and good things can happen to you get a big pot of gold at the end of the Wall Street rainbow or you can do your job be aggressive and face personal ruin...We really need to rethink how we govern and how regulate," Barofsky said. [/font color]

CONTINUED... http://www.businessinsider.com/neil-barofsky-2012-8

A pot o' gold awaits those who go along to help the few get along.

[Octafish]

55. Here's the program...

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/536/the-secret-recordings-of-carmen-segarra

[woo me with science]

57. kick

SYSTEMIC CORRUPTION

[Android3.14]

58. Kick WTF