

Ban email archives thrown open in devastating financial crash report - DMPenfold2008
http://www.computerworlduk.com/news/it-business/3274277/bank-email-archives-thrown-open-in-devastating-financial-crash-report/1

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notaddicted
The report itself:
[http://levin.senate.gov/newsroom/supporting/2011/PSI_WallStr...](http://levin.senate.gov/newsroom/supporting/2011/PSI_WallStreetCrisis_041311.pdf)

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kluikens
Was just about to post this myself. I was quite frustrated that not only did
writer not provide a link to the source, but didn't even mention the report by
name.

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mayukh
Call me jaded but nothing is going to come off this. Not one single person
from any of the wall street firms has gone behind bars for the massive amount
of fraud and deception that caused the financial crisis. Worst case there will
be a fine paid by a few firms (which is probably going to be less than some of
the bonuses they dole out). The best part about these fines is that firms get
to declare "No admission of any wrong doing". Really ?

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jsm386
Perhaps something will:

 _Senator Carl Levin, releasing the findings of a two-year inquiry yesterday,
said he wants the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange
Commission to examine whether Goldman Sachs violated the law by misleading
clients who bought the complex securities known as collateralized debt
obligations without knowing the firm would benefit if they fell in value.

The Michigan Democrat also said federal prosecutors should review whether to
bring perjury charges against Goldman Sachs Chief Executive Officer Lloyd
Blankfein and other current and former employees who testified in Congress
last year. Levin said they denied under oath that Goldman Sachs took a
financial position against the mortgage market solely for its own profit,
statements the senator said were untrue._

[http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-14/goldman-sachs-
misle...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-14/goldman-sachs-misled-
congress-after-duping-clients-over-cdos-levin-says.html)

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functionoid
Was financial melt down even caused by CDO's? It was caused by sub prime
mortgages mainly by Fannie and Freddy and everyone knows that however people
those who are in power want to look other way because they want to continue
with that, finally they have to put the blame on something, and this is
something.

~~~
alexqgb
Sub-prime mortgages - even in the billions - were not enough to cause total
financial implosion. However, CDO's (the value of which exceeded, I believe,
$45 trillion), most certainly could.

So yes, yes, a hundred times yes. Fraudulently-rated CDOs were the heart and
soul of the Crash. That, and extreme regulatory capture (which is something
else that people who can't even afford home payments are unlikely to buy).

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fname
If anyone is interested in this, I highly recommend reading "The Big Short:
Inside the Doomsday Machine"[1] by Michael Lewis. It talks about Greg Lippmann
(mentioned in the article) and how he and others cashed out before the
impending crash in 2008.

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/Big-Short-Inside-Doomsday-
Machine/dp/0...](http://www.amazon.com/Big-Short-Inside-Doomsday-
Machine/dp/0393072231)

~~~
skorgu
I also recommend "All The Devils Are Here" [1] which covers basically the same
ground as "Inside Job" the documentary but in more detail.

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/All-Devils-Are-Here-
Financial/dp/15918...](http://www.amazon.com/All-Devils-Are-Here-
Financial/dp/1591843634)

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hammock
Why can't these media outlets name names? Who were the people writing these
awful emails and making these decisions? Seems no one is willing to call them
out in the article.

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eli
Bloomberg puts names to their quotes
[http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-14/goldman-traders-
tri...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-14/goldman-traders-tried-to-
manipulate-market-in-2007-report-says.html)

Not really sure why it matters, though.

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hammock
Believe me I am the first person to tell anyone that dwelling on the past
doesn't solve future problems, but are you suggesting that accountability
doesn't matter? Thanks for the link by the way.

~~~
eli
No, not at all. Actually I suspect crimes have been committed and I'd like to
see an independent prosecutor with subpoena power. But I don't see how naming
the names of middle managers at goldman does anything to help you, the news
consumer.

And I believe all the quotes are sourced in the actual report, which others
have linked to.

~~~
hammock
Well for starters when this guy tries to sell me securities in the future, I
can turn him down. I'm sure the names are in the report, just found it curious
that they would be anonymized when reported in the news.

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jwinter
Is the email corpus available? One valuable thing that came out of Enron was
real-world email data.

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chailatte
Second highest donor for Obama in 2008 is Goldman Sachs at $994,795.

Timothy Geithner appointed of a former Goldman Sachs lobbyist to be his chief
of staff.

Goldman Sachs partner Gary Gensler is Obama’s Commodity Futures Trading
Commission head

Former Chief of Staff Emanuel received nearly $80,000 in cash from Goldman
Sachs during his four terms in Congress

Tom Donilon is Obama’s deputy national-security adviser. He earned just shy of
$4 million representing high-profile meltdown clients including Goldman Sachs.

Nothing will happen to Goldman Sachs while this government/bank incest
continue.

EDIT: 'Second highest donor'

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mkull
According to this list the top donor was University of Calif at 1.6MM -
[http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?cycle=2008&...](http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?cycle=2008&cid=n00009638)

$994,795 seems like a pitifully small number on the scale of Goldman Sachs &
government donations - but I would think this is a drop in the bucket. I don't
buy that ~1MM buys the administration. Wouldn't it be more likely this amount
was donated simply by Goldman employees acting independently? If the amount
was $100MM then yeah, I think you have a case for the conspiracy theory.

It is also tough for me to believe that $80,000 buys the chief of staff.

Am I off-base?

~~~
maxxxxx
That's the thing about lobbying. The ROI is very high.

~~~
lotusleaf1987
Then the University of California is doing something wrong...

