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General Electric agreed to buy oilfield services provider Lufkin Industries to expand its profitable oil and gas business. GE, the world's biggest maker of jet engines and electric turbines, has expanded in the energy industry with a series of acquisitions of companies that make equipment used in oil and gas production, while divesting assets in finance and media industries. The company has spent about $11 billion in acquisitions since 2007 to boost its presence in the oil and gas business, which is the conglomerate's fastest-growing and which contributes about 10 percent of its total revenue. Lufkin will broaden GE's artificial...

FORMER GOLDMAN BANKER: I Miss The Great Recession Already Michael, Bankers AnonymousJanuary 24, 2013 I’m just going to come out and say it, ok? I miss the Great Recession already. I miss it for two reasons: first as an investor and second as a human. The Investment Side of the Great Recession As an investor, the Great Recession represented the good times, now past.[1] Recessions – or at least their financial unfolding via changes in asset prices – cause not only wealth destruction, but also wealth creation. For investors[2] in particular, a recession is often necessary in order to deploy...

GOLDMAN: Gold Is Going To $1200 Matthew BoeslerJanuary 17, 2013The bank's central thesis is that the U.S. economic recovery finally takes off in 2013, and Goldman expects that to drive a selloff in the gold market as investors rotate away from traditional "safe-haven" investments. At the time, the analysts wrote, "We lower our 3-, 6- and 12-mo gold price forecasts to $1,825/toz, $1,805/toz and $1,800/toz and introduce a $1,750/toz 2014 forecast. While we see potential for higher gold prices in early 2013, we see growing downside risks." Now, Goldman has decided to up the ante a bit. Yesterday, its commodity...

In the film "My Brother the Serial Killer," set to air Wednesday on the Investigation Discovery network, Clay Rogers, the brother of convicted serial killer Glen Rogers, claims Glen murdered Simpson's ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and Ron Goldman—the pair Simpson was accused—and controversially acquitted—of slaying in 1995.

That dismal June retail sales report is causing a mass GDP-forecast-slashing parade on Wall Street. Here's Goldman's Jan Hatzius... Retail sales declined by 0.5% (month-over-month) in June, while the consensus had looked for a 0.2% gain. Key details of the report were also weaker: non-auto retail sales declined by 0.4%, and growth in April was revised down. Similarly, “core”/control retail sales (ex-autos, gasoline and building materials) was weak, declining 0.1% in June. The weakness reflected lower sales across a variety of categories, including general merchandise stores, electronics, furniture, sporting goods stores, and health and personal care retailers. Merely food and...

Goldman Sachs' (GS) analysts told investors to sell the S&P 500 (SPX) Thursday and boy did they ever. The S&P 500, which was already down 1%, dropped even further as Goldman's report bounced around email inboxes. Goldman's analysts said they could see the S&P 500 drop to 1,285, roughly 5% below its current levels. Heading into the close, the broad index was down more than 2% at 1,326. Analysts Noah Weisberger and Aleksandar Timcenko cited the sharp drop in the Philly Fed index Thursday as just another piece of evidence that the ephemeral recovery has lost steam. "We now think,...

Mario Draghi - 2002-2005: Vice Chairman and Managing Director at Goldman Sachs International In other words, Draghi was a key executive at Goldman at precisely the time when none other than Goldman Sachs was hired to create and facilitate the active hiding of the true extent of the Greek debt problem. In yet other words: could it be that none other than the head of the European Central Bank is refusing to cooperate with a Bloomberg FOIA, something even the US Federal Reserve ultimately succumbed to which led the revelation that the Fed had handed out trillions in secret loans...

<p>It doesn’t happen often, but sometimes God smiles on us. Last week, he smiled on investigative reporters everywhere, when the lawyers for Goldman, Sachs slipped on one whopper of a legal banana peel, inadvertently delivering some of the bank’s darker secrets into the hands of the public.</p>

Would America be a better place without Goldman Sachs? Of course it would. The "vampire squid" of Wall Street does not care about the future of America. Sadly, Goldman Sachs apparently does not even care much about their own clients. What Goldman Sachs is all about is making as much money as humanly possible. In the end, there is nothing wrong with making money, but there are constructive ways to make money and there are destructive ways to make money. Unfortunately, Goldman Sachs seems to find the destructive path almost irresistible. Greg Smith, the head of the U.S. equity...

| Share Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2012 THE ZEIT GIST Threatened Goldman Japan workers unionize Financial giant butts against tough domestic labor law as it seeks to slim down workforce By JAMES MCCROSTIE The past year has been anything but business as usual for the financial industry. Faced with a frosty economic climate, financial service companies have been busy chopping dead wood. Last year, 200,000 financial service jobs ended up on the cutting block worldwide. In Japan, that meant layoffs at famous firms including Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, HSBC Holdings, Mizuho Financial Group, and the not-so-famous, such as Spanish bank Bilbao Vizcaya...

Have a column on Iowa coming soon, but first, a quick but absurd note from the world of high finance. It seems Jim O'Neill, the head of Goldman's Asset Management department, is predicting that the United States stock market may go up "15 to 20 percent." O'Neill apparently believes Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve will resort to another round of money-printing, and finally green-light the long-awaited "Qe3," or third round of "Quantitative Easing." The QE programs involve the Fed printing hundreds of billions of dollars and pumping them into the marketplace, where they ostensibly stimulate the economy (although recent...

Why should my taxpayer dollars be used to advance sharia finance? Goldman Sachs, one of the largest recipients of Obama's redistribution of taxpayer money, is going Islamic. Many of Obama’s cabinet and appointed czars are directly connected to Goldman Sachs. The Muslim Brotherhood is dictating Obama's foreign policy, and now its financial policy as well. Sharia finance prohibits investments in whole American sectors -- tobacco, pork, alcohol and some forms of entertainment. Further, 2.5% must go to zakat (Islamic charity aka jihad). I do not want my money going to advance jihad and starve American business. Where is the separation...

Paul Goldman, a Richmond lawyer who is a former Virginia Democratic party chairman, is helping represent a conservative group in challenging Newt Gingrich's disqualification from the Old Dominion ballot on March 6, Super Tuesday. Bill Pascoe, executive vice president of Citizens for the Republic, said: “We are teaming up with former Virginia Democratic Party Chairman Paul Goldman to make sure the voters of the Commonwealth have a fair and transparent presidential primary process. ...

Hank Paulson Tipped Off The Goldman-Led "Plunge Protection Team" About Fannie Bankruptcy 7 Weeks In Advance Today, BusinessWeek's Michael Serrill and Jonathan Neumann have released a blockbuster report based on a FOIA response by the Treasury, which proves that in America rules are only for little people, that this country has been a banana republic for years, that Animal Farm was spot on, and gives excruciating detail of how Hank Paulson tipped off a select group of Goldman diaspora hedge fund managers about the eventual failure of Fannie and Freddie 7 weeks ahead of this information becoming public knowledge. The...

Not on even a Sunday is the headline barrage over: MARIO MONTI ASKED TO FORM NEW ITALIAN GOVERNMENT MONTI TO MAKE COMMENTS AFTER ACCEPTING OFFER TO LEAD ITALY MARIO MONTI THANKS NAPOLITANO FOR OFFER TO FORM GOVERNMENT MARIO MONTI SAYS ITALY MUST BE PROTAGONIST IN EUROPE MARIO MONTI SAYS HE'LL ACT TO SAVE ITALY FROM CRISIS And so the international advisor to Goldman Sachs drones on. In the meantime, the €300 billion in BTP sales is set to resume in just over 13 hours. Yet the reason why the EURUSD is less than jubilant on the news is that Silvio...

MF Global, the brokerage run by former Goldman Sachs chief Jon Corzine, today filed for bankruptcy protection, becoming one of the highest-profile U.S. victims of bad bets on European government debt. With the Chapter 11 filing, MF Global also is likely to be added to the ignominious list of the 10 largest bankruptcies in U.S. corporate history.

The first of many gold price upgrades is here, as Goldman's David Greely finally catches on to what has been all too obvious to anyone with a frontal lobe: "Gold prices hit a new record high last week, closing at $1,663/toz on August 3. Despite this rally, the rise in gold prices has continued to lag the plunge in US real interest rates, with 10-year TIPS yields trading below 30 bp. With our US economics team lowering their outlook for US economic growth, implying US real rates will remain lower for longer, and with sovereign debt issues in both the...

Following its admission yesterday that it is now buying oil by telling clients to sell Brent to $105-107 a monther after advising anyone who cares Brent was on its way to $130, today we learn that Goldman is actively dumping its prop, pardon, there we go again, flow, FLOW, inventory of oil equities to idiots, pardon, clients. As to how dropping crude prices and thus collapsing profit margins is beneficial for energy producers, that is one we will long be scratching our heads over. From Arjun Murti: Potential SPR release consistent with expectation of tight oil markets: We recommend buying...

For all those who believed that it was only JP Morgan who is manipulating the Brent-WTI spread, we regretfully have to inform you that the squid is once again front and center, having now been caught red-handed by none other than the ICE exchange, aka the home of Brent trading. From a just disclosed complaint: "On 28 January 2011 the Exchange’s monitoring detected six notable “price spikes” in the April11 Brent/WTI spread, between 14:26 hours and 14:31 hours UK time. These were investigated and found to be the result of a limit order and several large market orders placed in...

Will Sarah Palin’s intensifying rivalry with Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) cause the former Alaska governor to run for president? The first female Republican vice presidential nominee clearly believes she is the one who has paid the heavy dues by bearing the brunt of the “liberal elite” attacks to help build the tea party, social conservative wing of the GOP. Palin’s bus tour had some of the hallmarks of a primal scream: “I built this constituency, not Bachmann, not anyone else,” she said. Looking at it through her eyes, she has a point. But in 1932, former New York Gov. Al...

What was Timothy Geithner thinking back in 2008 when, as president of the New York Fed, he decided to give Goldman Sachs a $30 billion interest-free loan as part of an $80 billion secret float to favored banks? The sordid details of that program were finally made public this week in response to a court order for a Freedom of Information Act release, thanks to a Bloomberg News lawsuit. Sorry, my bad: It wasn’t an interest-free loan; make that .01 percent that Goldman paid to borrow taxpayer money when ordinary folks who missed a few credit card payments in order...

Goldman Sachs invested more than $1.3 billion from Libya's sovereign-wealth fund in currency bets and other trades in 2008 and the investment lost more than 98 percent of its value, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing internal Goldman documents. When the fund, controlled by Col. Muammar Gaddafi, made huge losses Goldman offered Libya the chance to become one of its biggest shareholders, the Journal said, citing people familiar with the matter.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is in trouble again. Still reading? If you are, you must be a Goldman employee, regulator, class-action lawyer, financial journalist or trolling the Internet for news about Steve Jobs. (See how I dropped the name to make this column more Google-friendly?) No one seems to care much about Goldman's latest troubles, and many Americans seem numb to more allegations of wrongdoing related to the financial crisis. Yet they keep coming, especially at Goldman. One of the biggest was last week's disclosure that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission's staff has "orally advised" the company that it "intends...

Don't blame American appetites, rising oil prices, or genetically modified crops for rising food prices. Wall Street's at fault for the spiraling cost of food. Demand and supply certainly matter. But there's another reason why food across the world has become so expensive: Wall Street greed. It took the brilliant minds of Goldman Sachs to realize the simple truth that nothing is more valuable than our daily bread. And where there's value, there's money to be made. In 1991, Goldman bankers, led by their prescient president Gary Cohn, came up with a new kind of investment product, a derivative that...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – In the most damning official U.S. report yet produced on Wall Street's role in the financial crisis, a Senate panel accused powerhouse Goldman Sachs of misleading clients and manipulating markets, while also condemning greed, weak regulation and conflicts of interest throughout the financial system. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, one of Capitol Hill's most feared panels, has a history with Goldman Sachs. He clashed publicly with its Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein a year ago at a hearing on the crisis. The Democratic lawmaker again tore into Goldman at a press briefing on...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The Senate will soon issue findings of a probe of the US mortgage meltdown that fueled the global financial crisis, with Goldman Sachs likely to face fresh embarrassment over its role, the Wall Street Journal reported Sunday. The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, whose high-profile inquiry commission subpoenaed Goldman's and other executives last year, is due to release its report on the subprime implosion of 2007 and 2008. The paper, citing people familiar with the matter, said the report was expected to release emails from securities firms that developed or sold subprime mortgages and financial vehicles including...

Ten days ago, when we first looked at the Libyan investment authority (its sovereign wealth fund), we asked "Which US Banks Are Managing Billions For The $32 Billion Libyan Sovereign Wealth Fund?" Based on Wikileaks data, it was disclosed that various US banks manage billions for the country which has just seen $30 billion of its assets largely frozen (although this is merely half of its total deposits). Obviously, we had "some" banks in mind, most of the variety whose directors believe they are above the law and can share inside information with criminal intent with utter disdain for the...

'Tomorrow's Children' (1934) which was called 'The Unborn' in the UK This was a very controversial film in its day. It was made during the height of the eugenics movement and considered subversive at the time. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSqUnqoHRFs Part I of 6

Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein bagged a $14.6M compensation package.....including stock awards, which were also paid to other top executives. Blankfein also got a 230% bump in his base salary to $2M, up from $600,000 since 2007....excluding private jets, cars and other perks. CFO David Viniar, COO Gary Cohn and Vice Chair Michael Evans received identical boosts, with each hauling in $1.85M annually. Blankfein's pay in the halcyon days of 2007, was $67.9M. Other firms have been hiking base pay at a time when regulators are mulling new rules for Wall Street pay.

Last Week Goldman Sachs raised $1.5 billion in a private placement of Facebook shares. Goldman is famous for its wealthy clientele and its ability to put together large deals, so selling $1.5 bln of a white hot company is no surprise. Goldman did surprise its US based customers by denying them access to the Facebook shares, and the reason behind the US exclusion may point to a bleak future for US capitalism.

Goldman noted that the transaction has received heavy media attention in recent days and said "in light of this intense media coverage, Goldman Sachs has decided to proceed only with the offer to investors outside the US." "Goldman Sachs concluded that the level of media attention might not be consistent with the proper completion of a US private placement under US law," it said. US securities law bars public promotion of private offerings and the Facebook deal has already reportedly attracted the attention of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Goldman stressed that the decision to limit the offering...

It took less than 24 hours for the political Left to seize upon the attempted assassination of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and the murder of six people on Saturday to blame the political Right for the shooting. Perhaps the most egregious example came from Paul Krugman of the New York Times, who wrote "We don't have proof yet that this was political, but the odds are that it was." (The newspaper that published plagiarized and fabricated accounts of the "D.C. sniper" by affirmative-action hire Jayson Blair in 2003 is still publishing unsubstantiated suppositions without "proof," eh?) "[Giffords'] father says that ‘the...

Facebook, the popular social networking site, has raised $500 million from Goldman Sachs and a Russian investor in a deal that values the company at $50 billion, according to people involved in the transaction. The deal makes Facebook now worth more than companies like eBay, Yahoo and Time Warner.

The special inspector general for TARP discusses how and why the program has failed to meet some of its stated goals. . . . . Q: There have been statements since your audit report on the decision to pay 100 percent for the toxic assets in Maiden Lane III to AIG’s counterparties that said that the government and Federal Reserve Bank officials did not have the authority to require less than 100 percent payment. Yet, as you point out, the same officials did not have the authority to compel banks to accept the capital injections, yet they pressured them to...

Goldman: U.S. GDP Forecasts Are Still Way Too High Vincent Fernando, CFA Oct. 29, 2010, 1:50 AM Goldman continues to pound the table in regards to their counter-consensus U.S. GDP forecast. Consensus forecasts for 2011 GDP growth have been falling, but they still need to come down much further. However, they're actually more optimistic than most about growth prospects for Europe and emerging markets: Goldman Sachs' Dominic Wilson: While the consensus forecasts on US and Euro-zone growth have recently moved closer to our own, we remain below consensus on US growth (1.8% vs. 2.4%) and above consensus on the Euro-zone...

Update: CNBC confirms that the New York Fed is part of a consortium that have launched a lawsuit against BofA regarding Countrywide mortgages. Shares are now off 3%. Original post: Interesting! Shares of Bank of America (BAC) are getting crushed on headlines that the New York Fed and PIMCO are about to jump on the Bank of America mortgage putback bandwagon. It's particularly surprising to see the NYFED jump in on the action, since that means they'd be actively working to weaken Bank of America. PIMCO is private, so their only interest is making more money. It makes sense. All...

4 In Your Corner continues to investigate the Rocket Docket. That's the speedy-foreclosure process in Southwest Florida's 20th Judicial Circuit. We have the story of one Charlotte County man who's trying to stop it. As a notary public with over 20-years experience, Ron Gillis scrutinized his mortgage documents preparing for his foreclosure hearing. And he claims to have found on paper what many of you have complained to 4 In Your Corner about, mortgage fraud and falsified documents; and in the courtroom, violation of due process and rogue judges. That's why he's filing complaints against foreclosure judges Leeann Schreiber and...

Bank of America alleged in a court filing this June: It appears as though many loans and other mortgage-related assets have been double and even triple-pledged to various constituencies As I have repeatedly pointed out, the failure of the mortgage originators and banks to prepare and record proper documentation has led to an epidemic of fraud. The pledging of the same mortgage again and again to different trusts related to mortgage backed securities is just one result. And as long-time foreclosure investigator Nye Lavalle writes: On thousands of occasions I stated to regulators, CEOS, banks, Fannie and Freddie that the...

WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--The White House is committed to holding banks accountable for any legal violations tied to housing foreclosures, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Tuesday. Gibbs also reiterated that the administration "strongly" supports an investigation by 50 state attorneys general into allegations that bank employees signed foreclosure documents without carefully reviewing the contents. Gibbs' statement comes as several large financial institutions, including Bank of America Corp. (BAC) and GMAC Mortgage, a lender and loan servicer, said they were restarting foreclosures. Bank of America said the company hasn't found significant problems with its process for seizing homes. The bank...

Foreclosure attorney David Stern, who is being investigated for fabricating legal documents, purposefully hid files from inspectors with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, a former employee said in recently released deposition. Stern had a tight-knit relationship with the two mortgage giants, and referred to them as his “babies,” former employee Kelly Scott said. Scott also said office managers and key staff members got gifts, including new cars. Stern’s law firm is one of the largest foreclosure law firms in Florida, handling thousands of cases per month. Attorney General Bill McCollum is investigating the firm for allegedly creating phony documents. McCollum’s...

I'm getting tired of this, so I'm going to trot out the proof and stick it under everyone's nose. We keep hearing that these "lost document" affidavits and similar are just "sloppiness." They are not. They are hard evidence of fraud, with the only decision left to be made being one on exactly where the fraud happened. I'm going to show you a document - a Pooling and Servicing Agreement - from one MBS Trust. There are literally thousands just like this. I've read dozens. Those that were sold to the public are all filed on the SEC's web page,...

(Reuters) - Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) shares fell 2 percent on Monday after Goldman Sachs cut its rating to "neutral," citing worries of a slow recovery in PC sales and a threat from tablet computers, which do not include Windows software. Goldman said the PC refresh cycle, which many had hoped would swing higher this year and bolster demand for Microsoft's products, now appeared "more elongated." It also said that Microsoft's problems were "not just a this-year issue," saying revenue and investor sentiment would remain under pressure until the world's largest software maker gains a firmer foothold in smartphones and tablet...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The timing of the Securities and Exchange Commission's case against Goldman Sachs Group Inc is "suspicious," a federal watchdog said, suggesting that the SEC used it to divert attention from a report that sharply criticized its probe into accused Ponzi schemer Allen Stanford. The SEC filed civil fraud charges against Goldman in mid-April, the same day it released a watchdog report accusing the agency of mishandling an investigation into Stanford's alleged $7 billion Ponzi scheme. The report by SEC Inspector General David Kotz said the regulator suspected as early as 1997 that Stanford was running a Ponzi...

Anonymous Goldmanite: Obama Needs To Look Like He's Bashing Us But He Doesn't Really Give A S#!T Courtney Comstock Sep. 16, 2010, 9:38 AM Someone at Goldman verbalized many people's worst nightmare and some people's happy place: A senior executive at Goldman told Gasparino: "Obama couldn't give a shit about all this anti-Wall Street stuff. He needs to bash us to get his bullshit financial reform through Congress." - Charlie Gasparino's new book, Bought And Paid For It's too bad Gasparino keeps them anonymous. You can picture that coming out of the mouth of anyone on Wall Street. Like Gary...

WASHINGTON -- The $700 billion U.S. bailout program launched in response to the global economic meltdown had a far greater impact overseas than other countries' financial rescue plans did on the U.S., according to a new report from a congressional watchdog. Billions of dollars in U.S. rescue funds wound up in big banks in France, Germany and other nations. That was probably inevitable because of the structure of the Treasury Department's program, the Congressional Oversight Panel says in a new report issued Thursday. The U.S. program aimed to stabilize the financial system by injecting money into as many banks as...

Goldman Sachs cuts its forecast for 2011 U.S. GDP to 1.9%, from 2.5%, and forecasts some "unconventional" easing coming that will include more asset purchases. The firm still expects 1.5% growth this year, but a smaller pickup next year as Congress resists further stimulus.

The Securities and Exchange Commission inspector general has agreed to a request from Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., to probe the timing and political motivations of the SEC’s $550 million settlement with Goldman Sachs in a mortgage securities fraud case:m SEC Inspector General H. David Kotz agreed in April to a request from U.S. Representative Darrell Issa, a California Republican, that he probe whether politics prompted the lawsuit against Goldman Sachs. (Snip) Aside from the timing, many observers scoffed at the settlement. The $550 million settlement is pocket change compared to Goldman’s $162 billion in assets

Goldman Sachs' Jan Hatzius has released a new report on the U.S. economy subtitled "The Second Half Slowdown." If that wasn't depressing enough, the details may be. Hatzius' report (via Paul Kedrosky) details the key headwinds facing the American economy, many of which have the impact of building a deflationary environment. The charts provide an excellent of brief of the negative potential for the second half of 2010 and what investors should be preparing themselves for. (charts at source)

Wall Street's most vocal critics of the new financial regulations aren't invited to the party. Neither Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein nor JPMorgan Chase chief Jamie Dimon were asked to attend President Obama's signing ceremony set for today in Washington. FinReg, as the financial sector overhaul is known, is likely to alter the state and style of business of Wall Street and, potentially, sap billions of dollars of revenues from some of the most powerful financial institutions in the country. The high-profile ceremony is expected to be attended by a few hundred guests including Harvard professor Elizabeth Warren, viewed by...

When the U.S. Postal Service's top marketing officer agreed to hire Goldman Sachs nearly two years ago without a written contract, top executives inside postal headquarters scrambled to make the unauthorized deal square with postal procurement rules. But the no-bid contract they eventually awarded to Goldman Sachs was backdated and was for the wrong kinds of services: The company was hired under a banking services agreement, but Goldman Sachs' postal work didn't have anything to do with banking, records show. And the idea to hire the banking giant came from a top former postal executive who also served on the...