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Democratic Sen. Corzine's Wall Street Sleaze
NewsMax ^ | 7/20 | Carl Limbacher

Posted on 07/21/2002 4:53:00 PM PDT by OPS4

With Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff For the story behind the story...

Wednesday, July 17, 2002

Sen. Corzine's Wall Street Sleaze

Sen. Jon Corzine, one of the loudest Democrats trying to blame others for corporate corruption, led an investment banking firm that stands accused of inflating stock prices in the 1990s and contributing to the market crash.

"Goldman Sachs, the firm that Mr. Corzine left as chairman in May 1999, has been a target of class-action lawsuits and accusations by a former broker who complained to the Securities and Exchange Commission that the investment house engaged in a scheme to force unwitting investors to pay artificially high prices for certain stocks," the Washington Times reported today.

Ignorant

The red-faced Corzine claims to be totally ignorant about such schemes when he ran the firm from 1994 to 1999.

"I don't believe there is ever going to be anything that sticks about us at Goldman Sachs forcing anybody to buy anything," said the senator from New Jersey, one of 16 Democrats who took off for Nantucket last weekend on a money-grubbing corporate junket after voting to close debate on corporate-accountability legislation.

"Goldman Sachs never forced anyone to buy anything when I was chairman, I can tell you that," he insisted.

However, "Nicholas Maier, who was syndicate manager of the Wall Street firm Cramer & Co. from 1996 to 1998, told SEC investigators in the spring that Goldman Sachs routinely forced him to buy stocks at inflated prices if he wanted to purchase shares of an initial public offering," the Times reported.

'Worst Perpetrator'

"Goldman, from what I witnessed, they were the worst perpetrator," Maier said. "They totally fueled the bubble. And it's specifically that kind of behavior that has caused the market crash. They built these stocks upon an illegal foundation — manipulated up, and ultimately, it really was the small person who ended up buying in."

Maier told the SEC that Goldman Sachs would offer him shares of a new company's IPO at the initial, low price of $20 a share only if he agreed to buy "aftermarket" shares of the same company at $100 each. And he would sell the shares of the higher-priced stock to small investors.

"None of these aftermarket orders had anything to do with what I honestly valued a company to be worth," Maier said. "Goldman created the convincing appearance of a winner, and the trick worked so well that they seduced further interest from other speculators hoping to participate in the gold rush.

"The general public had no idea that these stocks were actually brought into the world at unnaturally high levels through illegal manipulation."

As President Bush noted Monday, Wall Street went on a "binge" in the 1990s and now has a "hangover."

Corzine, by the way, bought his Senate seat with $60 million of the $320 million he received after taking Goldman Sachs public. (What does he do when his fellow congressional Dems, many of whom are also multimillionaires, start droning on about how much they hate "the rich"?) Now he's scrambling to explain himself to the public he claims to represent.

"What we had was a breakdown in corporate ethics and corporate responsibility that I don't think has anything to do with anything other than excessive focus on share price and managed earnings," he said.


TOPICS: Breaking News; Business/Economy; Crime/Corruption; Front Page News; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: democrats; stockfraud
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Well here we have a great article we had better hear on the main stream press, Please post and emaill all sites you can reach, Thanks, Ops4. God Bless America!!!
1 posted on 07/21/2002 4:53:00 PM PDT by OPS4
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To: OPS4
Corzine was forced out of Goldman Sachs due to some underhanded wheeling and dealing during the Long Term Capital scandal. He also refused to release his tax or buy out information during his run for Senate. Of course, he got a pass from the media and will continue to do so.
2 posted on 07/21/2002 4:55:52 PM PDT by OldFriend
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To: OPS4
No offense, but how can a four day old topic that has been posted several times on Free Republic be considered "Breaking News"?
3 posted on 07/21/2002 5:01:49 PM PDT by 11th Earl of Mar
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To: OPS4
Whenever I see an article with this kind of headline, I always play a little game with myself. I try to guess, "Newsmax or WorldNetDaily"? I guessed wrong this time, I thought it was WND.

Never ever ever do I guess wrong and have it be ABC, NBC, CBS, NYT, WashPost, Yahoo, AP, or Reuters. An article this negative of any Democrat would NEVER be published in those places.

4 posted on 07/21/2002 5:03:53 PM PDT by berned
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To: 11th Earl of Mar
The dateline of the article is today, So it could not have been posted before, maybe by some other source?, I guess I do not have the time to memorize all posts every four days, do you?
Ops4 God Bless America!
5 posted on 07/21/2002 5:15:02 PM PDT by OPS4
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To: OPS4
"Goldman Sachs, the firm that Mr. Corzine left as chairman in May 1999...

Hmmm, are we sure the firm wasn't Smith Barney Frank? Wouldn't want to confuse poor Ms. Waters now, would we?

6 posted on 07/21/2002 5:27:42 PM PDT by Major Matt Mason
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To: berned
Never ever ever do I guess wrong and have it be ABC, NBC, CBS, NYT, WashPost, Yahoo, AP, or Reuters. An article this negative of any Democrat would NEVER be published in those places.

Bump

7 posted on 07/21/2002 5:29:47 PM PDT by Alissa
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To: OPS4
Good answer to your critic! BTW, for me, it is "breaking news" as I don't have time to monitor the site constantly. So, thanks.
8 posted on 07/21/2002 5:30:52 PM PDT by Bigg Red
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To: OPS4
"Goldman Sachs never forced anyone to buy anything when I was chairman, I can tell you that," he [Corzine] insisted.

Everyone notice that he did not say they refrained from misrepresenting the stocks, or from providing all the facts of the fundamentals of the institution offering the shares?

I used to work in a boiler room telephoning contactees for brokers. Oh boy! Putting lipstick on pigs was what we did well. Couldn't stomach the work for long, probably for the same reason I found working in Land Use Planning so objectionable. When you have integrity, cheating people makes you sick.

9 posted on 07/21/2002 5:34:21 PM PDT by goody2shooz
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To: OPS4
"Corzine claims to be totally ignorant"

Yep. That says it all.

10 posted on 07/21/2002 5:43:23 PM PDT by fella
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To: goody2shooz
"or from providing" = "or provided"
11 posted on 07/21/2002 5:52:03 PM PDT by goody2shooz
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To: OPS4
OH MYYY!!!! IM Shocked and APPaLLed!!! "The red-faced Corzine claims to be totally ignorant about such schemes when he ran the firm from 1994 to 1999." [/Glee]
12 posted on 07/21/2002 5:59:54 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
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To: OPS4
Well here we have a great article we had better hear on the main stream press

Why, just luckily enough I am in possession of a special computer that can calculate comparative odds on any single subject at the push of just a single button!

I am entering the question to this great computer just now: What are the odds that this story will be covered by the mainstream media? Grrrr...clunk...whizz...brrrrr...and here is it's answer:

The same odds as for Osama Bin Laden converting to Assembly-of-God style Christianity.

13 posted on 07/21/2002 6:26:56 PM PDT by Scott from the Left Coast
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To: OPS4
Bump!
14 posted on 07/21/2002 6:38:11 PM PDT by Bogie
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To: goody2shooz
Of course GS didn't "force" anyone to buy stocks. However if you didn't buy the stocks then they didn't do business with you. Gives GS deniability.
15 posted on 07/21/2002 7:08:20 PM PDT by lelio
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To: goody2shooz
The really funny issue is that the brokerages manage mutual funds. These funds have managers who hire accountants and analysts to review the businesses who's stocks, bonds, and securities they include(buy) into their fund. What really tickles me, is just what were these fund-level managers, accountants, and analysts doing exactly? For how many years? And people complain about government workers collecting a check for doing nothing? These were people making a few hundred grand a year to report back on the health and integrity of the stocks the funds were aquiring!

Shoot the bastards!

16 posted on 07/21/2002 7:08:32 PM PDT by blackdog
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To: OPS4
The story is from last Wednesday's Washington Times [no fault of yours]. Try a search "Corzine" and you will see several posts.
17 posted on 07/21/2002 7:21:42 PM PDT by 11th Earl of Mar
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To: OPS4
The liberal media will investigate theis on the same day they air Juanita Brodderick's story.
18 posted on 07/21/2002 7:34:19 PM PDT by Blood of Tyrants
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To: lelio
I think I am going to sue American Express Financial Advisors in order to get a discovery look-see at the reports their in house analysts and accountants put together on the lipsticked pig stocks. They lost $100,000,000 on Worldcom alone. These funds were just defrauding investors. Technically they forced nobody to buy the funds, but we did tape record our last several meetings with our advisor. I would say we were coerced.
19 posted on 07/21/2002 8:14:57 PM PDT by blackdog
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To: Scott from the Left Coast
AAHHHHMMMEEENNNN......say it brother, say it.
20 posted on 07/21/2002 8:20:19 PM PDT by Madcelt
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