Sometimes I can miss the blindingly obvious. Like other observers of the widening sovereign debt crisis in Europe, we’ve commented on the fact that the big reason for Germany to work towards a rescue (more likely, the end game is a restructuring) of Greece and other Club Med members at risk is that its own […]
Read more...By Richard Alford, a former economist at the New York Fed. Since then, he has worked in the financial industry as a trading floor economist and strategist on both the sell side and the buy side. Economists have joined the debate about the merits of requiring the downsizing of too big to fail (“TBTF”) financial […]
Read more...The Financial Times indicator is looking more and more reliable: when the pink paper starts playing at the top of its form, the wheels are about to come off. The most troubling aspect of the Standard & Poors downgrade of Greece to junk and Portugal’s downgrade came in its release. It isn’t just that Greece […]
Read more...Opening Remarks Overview: The Senate committee presented a case that sought to refute the prior public statements of Goldman Sachs and establish that Goldman was, in fact, betting against clients and had rampant, and unacceptable, conflicts of interest. Senators Levin, Collins, McCain and McKaskill made statements that seem to anticipate many of the defenses that […]
Read more...Enjoy! You can view the segment here. PS Reader Independent Accountant correctly chided me for giving the bill too high a grade. This part was a classic example of anchoring.
Read more...As Goldman and the Senate Committee on Investigations are duking out The Battle of the E-Mails, with each side claiming the other has painted a misleading picture, it is becoming pretty clear that Goldman, contrary to its sanctimonious twattle about putting clients first, actually puts its fees first. This should come as no surprise to […]
Read more...It’s ironic how the “Goldman was so smart to have shorted subprime” meme is now being turned on its head in the MSM as Goldman’s conduct in the run-up to the crisis is begin re-examined in a new light. The underlying premise of the Goldman defenders is that it is fine for the firm to […]
Read more...By Tom Adams, an attorney and former monoline executive, and Yves Smith Despite extensive credit crisis post mortems, many of the widely accepted explanations of what happened are at odds with facts on the ground. These superficial explanations are hard to dislodge because they tally with widely held beliefs about how the real estate and […]
Read more...A 15 year veteran of Wall Street who put us on to Magnetar disappeared unexpectedly, much to our concern. He resurfaced recently and gave us a bulletin: Sorry I’ve been out of touch so long. It’s just that I’ve become quite disappointed/disaffected by the whole thing. We have failed and “they” have won. All the […]
Read more...An interesting disconnect exists between Goldman’s public posture on the SEC’s suit against it over its Abacus 2007 AC1 deal and its private remarks. The firm has maintained that the charges are baseless and politically motivated, and hinted that if there is any dirt here, it must be the fault of Fabrice Tourre, the staffer […]
Read more...By Tom Adams, an attorney and former monoline executive The SEC’s complaint against Goldman Sachs on its Abacus 2007 AC1 transaction may have impact beyond just the facts in that particular deal. The case has touched off a firestorm of reaction across the globe now that a government enforcement agency has dared use words like […]
Read more...Goldman pointed avoided discussing its pending SEC lawsuit directly on its conference call earlier today, but other reports suggest it is taking an even more pugnacious stance than its initial press released indicated. From Politico: Goldman’s crisis strategy…is already clear: An attempt to discredit the Securities and Exchange Commission by painting the case as tainted […]
Read more...By Andrew Dittmer, a mathematician with hedge fund experience, and Richard Smith, a UK based capital markets IT consultant Readers of this blog are by now familiar with the incredible story of how a single hedge fund (Magnetar) managed to play a shockingly extensive role in inflating the housing bubble in 2006-2007. The story was […]
Read more...By Tom Adams, an attorney and former monoline executive, and Yves Smith One issue that continues to puzzle us, in looking at the sudden furor about seemingly duplicitous dealings by investment banks in the real estate related CDO business, is that the focus thus far has been primarily on the investment banks that packaged and […]
Read more...By Yves Smith and Tom Adams, an attorney and former monoline executive Both the traditional media and the blogosphere have taken an almost obsessive interest in the suit the SEC filed against Goldman last week with regard to one of its synthetic real estate related CDOs, Abacus 2007 AC1. Goldman’s shares and the stock market […]
Read more...