Goldman Sachs= Enron of the world.
Swiss banks hide private wealth from goverment taxers.
WallStreet banks hide government debt from taxpayers.
Once of the under reported events of the recent financial crisis was the elimination of Charlotte as a rival banking center to New York. One wonders if the hand of Goldman was working behind the scenes to destroy rivals Bank of America and Wachovia who were developing Charlotte into a major banking center. During the height of the crisis Feds forced Bank of America into a shotgun marriage with Merrill Lynch. The Feds also tried to force a Wachovia into a shotgun marriage with the bankrupt Citibank in which the government would assume the bad loans of both banks and give Citibank the billions of deposits at Wachovia. That deal was so good for Citi that Wells Fargo intervened, buying Wachovia for a song and keeping the Feds from shoring up Citi using Wachovia’s assets.
Ken Lewis, CEO of Bank of America, made the mistake of publicly testifying that the Federal Reserve and Treasury put a gun to his head to force his bank into an unsound merger with Merrill Lynch. He has now resigned. He and his former bank are now being hounded by Andrew Cuomo, Attorney General of New York who seems to see nothing unseemly going on in his own backyard so he is using the power of the state to go after Bank of America. Wachovia has been swallowed up by Wells and Bank of America will be hounded by the government until it is a shell of its former self. Charlotte has been eliminated as a rival banking center (so much for competition in our government and Goldman managed free enterprise system).
Goldman was bailed out and is now back to earning record profits and bonuses for its executives while developing new instruments of financial destruction. No doubt Goldman will continue to pour millions into campaigns so Washington and state politicians will look the other way. No need to consider antitrust or Rico prosecutions for the Goldman guys.
Isn’t Goldman Sacks involved in Al Gore’s billion dollar carbon credit scheme?