In this first video Greg Gordon of McClatchy News reports that Goldman knew that mortgages were not being properly reviewed


Real News Network - November 1, 2009
GOLDMAN SACHS' SECRET BETS
McClatchy's Greg Gordon reports that Goldman knew that mortgages were not being properly reviewed


Here Paul Jay interviews Gordon who explains that a five month McClatchy investigation has found that Goldman's failure to disclose those secret bets may have violated securities laws - that in 2006 and 2007, Goldman Sachs Group peddled more than $40 billion in securities backed by at least 200,000 risky home mortgages, but never told the buyers that it also was secretly betting that a sharp drop in U.S. housing prices would send the value of those securities plummeting.



Real News Network - November 1, 2009
How Goldman secretly bet on the U.S. housing crash
Goldman didn’t tell buyers of $40 billion in securities it was secretly betting the other way

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Larry Flynt, known to many Americans as an outspoken, fearless champion of the First Amendment, and pornography entrepreneur as the publisher of Hustler Magazine and various other enterprises, is speaking up about his belief that the American government has "...been taken over by Wall Street, the mega-corporations and the super-rich" in an item he wrote for the Huffington Post, titled "Common Sense 2009".

While there are likely plenty of people who would disdain Flynt for the reputation he developed and the methods that he employed to amass his personal wealth. Many people who would consider him morally corrupt for his role in bringing extreme pornographic images to newsstands and screens, or as an uneducated, crass, obscenity shouting miscreant (once having been ordered arrested by the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court for contempt). Flynt does have some admirable attributes.

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from Sharona Coutts, ProPublica
July 16, 2009 2:02 pm EDT (view source)

Goldman Sachs has proved once again that it knows how to make money. Wednesday’s announcement of a record quarterly profit of $3.44 billion ($) has spurred debate over how the bank did it.

In addition to making money via its own trades, Goldman profits by advising clients about deals. Some of that advice has proved quite savvy.

As we reported last year, one of Goldman’s money-making strategies was to encourage some clients to bet on declines of the creditworthiness of a range of states — including California, New Jersey, New York and Florida. Goldman advised hedge funds to take the bets by buying credit default swaps, the insurance-like financial instruments that have been blamed for contributing to the financial meltdown last fall.

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Matt Renner is an editor and Washington reporter for Truthout. He can be reached at Matt@truthout.org.

This article was originally published at Truthout.

Washington - Today, the Obama administration will present a plan for reregulating the financial industry - one of the most highly anticipated policy reforms on the president's long list. But critics charge that the key to the future of the financial system is accountability for crimes.

The collapse of the financial industry and the subsequent government bailouts have enraged Americans, who see their government using tax dollars to save a system which failed to protect the interests of the little people. Now that the world financial system has taken as small step back from the brink of disaster, Americans want to see how much control and protection their unprecedented lending has bought them.

The president's top economic advisers, Treasury secretary Timothy Geithner and Director of the National Economic Council Lawrence Summers, outlined the planned reforms in an op-ed piece published in The Washington Post on Monday.

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On March 22, Intrepid Liberal Journal published his own podcast interview here with veteran journalist William Greider about his new book "Come Home America":

Over the years, Greider has been a determined voice of truth against a backdrop of America’s pro-war, pro-Wall Street governing elites and their enablers inside the corporate media. While Alan Greenspan was celebrated, Greider warned that the Federal Reserve and other regulatory agencies were guilty of dereliction.

Now The Nation's national affairs correspondent, William Greider has been a political journalist for more than 35 years. A former Rolling Stone and Washington Post editor, he is the author of the national bestsellers "One World, Ready or Not", "Secrets Of The Temple", "Who Will Tell The People", "The Soul Of Capitalism" and, most recently, "Come Home America".

This past Thursday, March 27, William Greider was again interviewed, this time by another veteran journalist, Bill Moyers, on the PBS program Bill Moyers Journal, and issued one of the most ominous political evaluations and warnings of his long career...

BILL MOYERS: Yeah, the corporate state is here.

WILLIAM GREIDER: The corporate state is here. And I'd say, let's not argue over that. The fact is, if the Congress goes down the road I see them going down, they will institutionalize the corporate state in a way that will be severely damaging to any possibility of restoring democracy. And I want people to grab their pitch forks, yes, and be unruly. Get in the streets. Be as noisy and as nonviolently provocative as you can be. And stop the politicians from going down that road. And let me add a lot of politicians need that to be able to stand up. Our President needs that to be able to stand up.

(full transcript below...)

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Edward M. Liddy grew up in New Brunswick, New Jersey, earned a bachelor's degree from Catholic University of America in 1968 and a master's in business administration from George Washington University in 1972.  He then began a long career in corporate America, including stops at the Ford Motor Company in Detroit, drug maker G.D. Searle & Co in Skokie, Illinois, and Allstate Corporation in Northbrook, Illinois.

During Edward Liddy's apprenticeship in the buccaneering life he was exposed to the most influential teachers and lasting experiences.  While at Searle, Liddy who was CFO worked for a CEO , Donald Rumsfeld, who has always epitomized the height of arrogance as demonstrated by a successful buccaneer.   When he was at Allstate, Liddy presided over the company during and after hurricane Katrina, and Liddy observed first hand the effects of over exposure to risk and subsequent loss of trust when Allstate was faced with the massive losses suffered by homeowners in New Orleans, and Allstate subsequently canceled insurance policies and exited the business of insuring homeowners against casualty, lucrative as the business might have once been and could be.

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