Big Banks are Invincible

The SEC will never bring charges against any Big Bank. Not now against Goldman Sachs, or ever.

A quick recap:

The Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations found that Goldman Sachs “designed, marketed, and sold CDOs in ways that created conflicts of interest with the firm’s clients and at times led to the bank’s profiting from the same products that caused substantial losses for its clients.”

Okay, so Blankfein and friends sold their client, Morgan Stanley, some CDOs, while taking a $2 billion short position against the same deal. Then they testified in Congress denying that they took a position against their client for profit. Open-and-shut perjury case, right?

[Senator Carl] Levin gift-wrapped the whole thing for [Attorney General Eric Holder] He could have had a dozen easy convictions just on the evidence in that report, and if he had been creative, if he had used his vast power to roll up the guilty and flip them into more revelations, then he’d have had enough cases to last the AG’s office the next decade. But the Holders of the world do not want to be creative when the targets are politically influential rich people. Instead, they use their creativity against Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, immigrant housekeepers, and guys who knock over liquor stores.

So that’s it. Big Banks will never be charged with anything because of two simple facts:

  • They can afford the best lawyers in the world and no one wants to look stupid against them
  • Government agencies don’t want to upset well-connected rich people

At least we got Lance Armstrong, making the world that much safer! Why don’t we just elect Goldman Sachs president of the USA and call it a day.

AG Eric Holder Has No Balls — Rolling Stone

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