Subject:
GOLDMAN SACHS SHOULD BE PROSECUTED AND ITS ILLICIT RICHES CONFISCATED OR RETURNED TO THOSE IT DEFRAUDED
To:
President Barack Obama
Sen. Charles Schumer
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand
Rep. Nydia Velazquez
November 2, 2009
GOLDMAN SACHS SHOULD BE PROSECUTED AND ITS ILLICIT RICHES CONFISCATED OR RETURNED TO THOSE IT DEFRAUDED
Now, pension funds, insurance companies, labor unions
and foreign financial institutions that bought those
dicey mortgage securities are facing large losses, and
>>> a five-month McClatchy investigation has found that\
>>> Goldman's failure to disclose that it
>>> made secret, exotic bets on an imminent housing crash
may have violated securities laws.
"The Securities and Exchange Commission should be very
interested in any financial company that secretly
decides a financial product is a loser and then goes out
and actively markets that product or very similar
products to unsuspecting customers without disclosing
its true opinion," said Laurence Kotlikoff, a Boston
University economics professor who's proposed a massive
overhaul of the nation's banks. "This is fraud and
should be prosecuted."
John Coffee, a Columbia University law professor who
served on an advisory committee to the New York Stock
Exchange, said that investment banks have wide latitude
to manage their assets, and so the legality of Goldman's
maneuvers depends on what its executives knew at the
time.
"It would look much more damaging," Coffee said, "if it
appeared that the firm was dumping these investments
because it saw them as toxic waste and virtually
worthless."
Brooklyn , NY
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