Free Republic

Sen. Jeff Flake (R., Ariz.) is questioning why taxpayers had to subsidize NFL events honoring America’s troops. The Pentagon gave the NFL, which has revenues of nearly $10 billion, $5.4 million between 2011 and 2014 for pregame and halftime events that appeared to be put on by the football teams themselves. The Hill reports: “It is troubling to learn that taxpayer funds are being used to compensate these teams for honoring and recognizing U.S. military service members,” Flake said Monday to Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and Chief of the National Guard Bureau Gen. Frank Grass.

A much clearer picture is developing of what went on during the middle of the financial crisis, when AIG was bailed out by the government and Goldman Sachs ended up receiving 100 cents on the dollar from AIG on various instruments. The clearer picture is the result of Janet Tavakoli's provocative article, Goldman’s Lies of Omission. In the article, she claims that GS CFO David Viniar lied when he said GS's exposure to AIG would be insignificant. A anonymous Goldman apologist who writes at Economics of Contempt responded to Tavakoli's article, calling the article part of a, "ridiculous conspiracy about...

Goldman's sales and its clandestine wagers, completed at the brink of the housing market meltdown, enabled the nation's premier investment bank to pass most of its potential losses to others before a flood of mortgage defaults staggered the U.S. and global economies.

WASHINGTON — 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 it was secretly betting that a sharp drop in U.S. housing prices would send the value of those securities plummeting. Goldman's sales and its clandestine wagers, completed at the brink of the housing market meltdown, enabled the nation's premier investment bank to pass most of its potential losses to others before a flood of mortgage defaults staggered the U.S. and global economies. Only later did investors discover that what Goldman had...

It is by now well known that the banks on the other side of credit default swaps sold by AIG got paid out at par when the government bailed out the insurance giant. But what isn't as well known is that by deciding to pay AIG's counter-party in full, the Federal Reserve was reversing months of work AIG executives had done to convince the banks to take a haircut on their positions Bloomberg reports that the documents were similar to those drafted by AIG, except for one crucial detail. Part of a sentence in the document was crossed out. It...

Given the public outcry over news of Goldman Sachs's recent record earnings, you'd think many people would prefer Goldman had lost money. Does that really make sense? I can understand why some people are upset, since I've heard from many of them. Their argument is that Goldman Sachs, like other recipients of funds from the government's Troubled Asset Relief Program, might well have failed without taxpayer assistance. Now, without the slightest sign of being in any way chastened, Goldman bankers have gone out and earned so much that they stand to receive huge bonuses that rival those at the height...

Money can't buy love? For proof, look no further than Goldman Sachs. Last week, the firm reported a spectacular quarterly profit -- close to $3.5 billion for the bank and about $385,000 in compensation for each employee for the first half of the year -- and right on cue, the braying began for the heads of the Goldmanites. Earlier this month, Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi, in a comprehensive exercise in conspiracy mongering, primed the pump of outrage with his article "The Great American Bubble Machine." Now a chorus of supporters has chimed in, shocked that in a recession the evil...

Let's dispense with this sort of bilge from The Washington Post right here: Money can't buy love? For proof, look no further than Goldman Sachs. Last week, the firm reported a spectacular quarterly profit -- close to $3.5 billion for the bank and about $385,000 in compensation for each employee for the first half of the year -- and right on cue, the braying began for the heads of the Goldmanites. Earlier this month, Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi, in a comprehensive exercise in conspiracy mongering, primed the pump of outrage with his article "The Great American Bubble Machine." Now a...

See the video of how women are treated on a daily basis in the islamic world.

As Goldman Sachs alumni play a key role in stewarding the nation’s economy, it’s worth recalling that the late economist John Kenneth Galbraith blamed Goldman Sachs for helping to cause the Great Depression. In his book, The Great Crash, 1929, Galbraith, a key figure in President John F. Kennedy’s administration, devoted an entire chapter he titled “In Goldman, Sachs, We Trust,” to detailing the “large-scale corporate thimblerigging” that Goldman and other Wall Street firms practiced in the 1920s. Thimbleriggers or not, supremely self-assured Goldman Sachs alumni at the highest levels of the Bush administration are now pulling the levers of...

This summer, when the Treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr., sought help navigating the Wall Street meltdown, he turned to his old firm, Goldman Sachs, snagging a handful of former bankers and other experts in corporate restructurings. In September, after the government bailed out the American International Group, the faltering insurance giant, for $85 billion, Mr. Paulson helped select a director from Goldman’s own board to lead A.I.G. And earlier this month, when Mr. Paulson needed someone to oversee the government’s proposed $700 billion bailout fund, he again recruited someone with a Goldman pedigree, giving the post to a 35-year-old...

Al Gore’s campaign against global warming is shifting into high gear. Reporters and commentators follow his every move and bombard the public with notice of his activities and opinions. But while the mainstream media promote his ideas about the state of planet Earth, they are mostly silent about the dramatic impact his economic proposals would have on America. And journalists routinely ignore evidence that he may personally benefit from his programs. Would the romance fizzle if Gore’s followers realized how much their man stands to gain? Earlier this year Gore experienced a notable public relations debacle. The Tennessee Center for...

A top executive of a Wall Street firm that had received federal bailout money was among the donors who contributed to President Obama's 2010 Senate re-election campaign after he resigned his Illinois seat, the Washington Times reported. Bruce A. Heyman, managing director at Goldman Sachs, which received a $10 billion bailout last year, donated a maximum $2,300 to the Obama 2010 fund the day after Christmas, the newspaper reported. In all, the fund received four contributions totaling $4,800 on Dec. 26, according to Federal Election Commission reports.

One of the most contentious issues in the government's bailouts of Wall Street has been whether Goldman Sachs got any special treatment because former treasury Secretary Hank Paulson was the firm's former CEO. And the government is permeated with Goldman Sachs veteran. Even Geithner's own right hand man is a former Goldman lobbyist. The company benefited enormously from so-called "counterparty" payouts from AIG, which the company was only able to make after an infusion of taxpayer cash. The government has defended that move, saying theAIG bailout was necessary because of systemic risk if the counterparties should fail. But recently Goldman...

There is a whiff of Fascism emanating from the Obama White House. Reports say that the head of GM is quitting under duress from the Obama administration:

Goldman (and other banks') "Hedges" There is a rumor about Goldman Sachs flying around on the street - allegedly they are about to report their second-best quarter in history, +$12 billion or so.In addition, there is this from Bloomberg: A 47 percent gain for the company’s stock price this year and a return to profitability in the first quarter may help Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein raise new money, analysts said. That might let Goldman Sachs, the sixth-biggest bank, return the cash received in October from the Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program and shake off compensation and hiring restrictions...

Time To Breakup Goldman Sachs It's time to breakup Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and for that matter any bank or holding company deemed too big to fail. It's not just the "too big to fail" hazard that is troubling, it's also the power these corporations have and the potential to abuse that power that is also troubling. /snip Readers know that I am not a subscriber to Plunge Protection Team (PPT) theory. However, I am open to the idea that it is possible for Broker Dealers or Bank Holding Companies to be trading their own accounts ahead of customer accounts and/or...

...When Goldman became a bank holding company last fall amid the mushrooming credit crisis, it switched its reporting cycle so its fiscal quarters were in line with calendar quarters beginning Jan. 1. To adjust its reporting schedule, Goldman began fiscal 2009 on Jan. 1 instead of Dec. 1 of last year. The bank said for the month of December, which fell between the change in reporting cycles, it lost $1 billion, or $2.15 per share.

The bank has instructed Wall Street law firm Chadbourne & Parke to pursue blogger Mike Morgan, warning him in a recent cease-and-desist letter that he may face legal action if he does not close down his website. Florida-based Mr Morgan began a blog entitled "Facts about Goldman Sachs" – the web address for which is goldmansachs666.com According to Chadbourne & Parke's letter, dated April 8, the bank is rattled because the site "violates several of Goldman Sachs' intellectual property rights" and also "implies a relationship" with the bank itself. Unsurprisingly for a man who has conjoined the bank's name with...

NEW YORK, April 14 (Reuters) - Goldman Sachs Group Inc has a "duty" to return the $10 billion it received in a U.S. government bailout, as it moves to benefit from an expected recovery in capital markets, its chief financial officer said. The company was Wall Street's most profitable before converting to a commercial bank last September. It returned to profitability in the first quarter, on Monday posting a $1.66 billion profit after preferred stock dividends, more than double what analysts had forecast. Goldman sold $5 billion of common stock at $123 a share, and plans to use the proceeds...