Secret tapes of Fed meetings on Goldman prompt call for U.S. hearings

[jakeXT]

This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by bluesbassman (a host of the Latest Breaking News forum).

Source: Reuters

(Reuters) - An influential U.S. senator wants to hold hearings into "disturbing" issues raised by secretly taped conversations between Federal Reserve supervisors and officials at Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N), a bank the Fed was tasked with policing.

Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, on Friday called for hearings after portions of the recordings from 2011 and 2012 were made public. Fellow Democrat Sherrod Brown, also a committee member, called for a "full and thorough investigation" into the allegations they raised.

Carmen Segarra, a former New York Fed bank examiner who brought a wrongful termination lawsuit against her former employer, recorded the conversations and provided them to the investigative news outlet ProPublica and the public radio show "This American Life" to illustrate what she saw as an inappropriately close relationship between regulator and bank.

The tapes appear to show an unwillingness among some Fed supervisors to both demand specific information from Goldman about a transaction with Banco Santander and to strongly criticize what Segarra concluded was the lack of an appropriate conflict-of-interest policy at Goldman.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/26/us-usa-fed-whistleblower-idUSKCN0HL2F320140926

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Time for some Pecora ?

The Pecora Investigation was an inquiry begun on March 4, 1932 by the United States Senate Committee on Banking and Currency to investigate the causes of the Wall Street Crash of 1929. The name refers to the fourth and final chief counsel for the investigation, Ferdinand Pecora.

..


As reiterated by U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Arthur Levitt during his 1995 testimony before the United States House of Representatives, the Pecora Investigation uncovered a wide range of abusive practices on the part of banks and bank affiliates. These included a variety of conflicts of interest, such as the underwriting of unsound securities in order to pay off bad bank loans, as well as "pool operations" to support the price of bank stocks. The hearings galvanized broad public support for new banking and securities laws. As a result of the Pecora Commission's findings, the United States Congress passed the Glass–Steagall Banking Act of 1933 to separate commercial and investment banking, the Securities Act of 1933 to set penalties for filing false information about stock offerings, and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, which formed the SEC, to regulate the stock exchanges.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pecora_Commission

[orpupilofnature57]

1. Disheartening .

[reddread]

2. that threat should fatten Hillary's campaign chest nicely

all things being equal, money isnt everything and many races have been lost despite the advantage.

[Thinkingabout]

3. Why in the hell has it taken so long for Warren to jump on this?

[Autumn]

5. I think the tapes were just released,

Today is the first I've heard of them.

[Thinkingabout]

6. Falling down on the job.

[Autumn]

7. Sure she is

[DisgustipatedinCA]

9. What's your problem with Elizabeth Warren? Be specific.

When should she have addressed this, in your view?

[MannyGoldstein]

13. Before she knew about it.

At the latest!

[DisgustipatedinCA]

14. Adherents to cults of personality always make this mistake

They're looking for something, anything against Warren so that they can engage in "see, I told you so". What they never take into account is that some of us follow ideals and not people.

[rhett o rick]

10. I would say you have audacity but that's giving you too much credit. Disparaging those that want

to investigate corruption while lauding those that are involved in the corruption.
Thanks for the excellent evidence that the DEmocratic Party needs purging. Send the Conservatives back to the Repubs where they belong. You know the Goldman-Sachs worshipers.

[A Simple Game]

15. And why wasn't she the first to jump on it? Oh, she was. So what is your problem? n/t

[zeemike]

4. Go get them Liz and Sherrod

You two are about the only ones that will in this dysfunctional congress.

[Sopkoviak]

8. Audit the Fed

Former Rep. Ron Paul’s push to audit the Federal Reserve got another boost Wednesday when the House passed the bill for the second time in three years, and by a bigger margin than before.

The bill, now sponsored by Rep. Paul Broun, Georgia Republican, was approved on a 333-92 vote, with all but one Republican and 106 Democrats in favor of it. That’s a major jump from last time, when a majority of Democrats voted against it.

Still, despite the overwhelming support, the law is likely to die. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who had previously indicated support for such an audit, reversed himself in 2012 and said he wouldn’t let the bill come to to the Senate floor.

Mr. Paul, a long-time congressman who twice ran for the GOP’s presidential nomination, made auditing the Fed one of his chief campaign issues, and it regularly drew loud applause from his followers.

Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/sep/17/house-approved-ron-pauls-audit-fed-bill/#ixzz3ETRImYKg

[rhett o rick]

11. I thought the Fed was recently audited as requested by Sen Sanders?? nm

[PSPS]

12. It's been "Pecora Time" for six years!

Even though we're far to corrupt anymore for any such thing, it's still worth remembering:

http://election.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=1682230&mesg_id=1682327

[daleanime]

16. K&R....

[bluesbassman]

17. Locking - Duplicate

Please consider posting this as an update in this thread: http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014904145