Goldman Sachs, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Iran, and Unicorn Sanctions
Five entities have gotten into trouble lately. In no particular order, they are Goldman Sachs, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the nation of Iran, and unicorns.
(For those wondering about the recent unicorn scandal involving griffins, I will defer to the Gutfeldosaurus and his Redeye crew.)
Goldman Sachs has recently been accused of unsavory business practices. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae engaged in risky business practices that nearly brought down the entire global financial system. The nation of Iran wants to blow up the world.
All of these entities are on or have been on the hot seat. There has been talk of sanctioning them.
They all have something else in common.
They will all be fine. Absolutely nothing is going to happen to them.
Anybody who believes that nobody is above the law needs to stop living in Candyland and observe the entities I referenced. They are absolutely above the law.
Let’s start with Goldman Sachs. As a creature of Wall Street, I can say as a professional that the United States government has had its head so far up Goldman’s anus that determining the separation point is difficult.
Goldman Sachs for a long time has been considered the gold standard of Wall Street. Every stockbrokerage professional wants to work for them or JP Morgan.
(Full disclosure: I applied to work there in the 1990s. I did not work there. I do not own stock in the company, but own shares of other brokerage firms.)
The reputation that Goldman Sachs walked on water was in part due to the fact that they were seen as truly hiring the very best and brightest. Some firms will hire you without a high school diploma. Goldman likes MBAs. In fact, without one, getting in the door is next to impossible.
Similar to Harvard in the educational field, Goldman was able to coast upon its reputation to get top talent, which enhanced its reputation. It was an upward spiral.
Yet despite allegations…and again, innocent until proven guilty…Goldman is untouchable. President Obama will talk tough, but neither he nor anybody else in government wants to lay a glove on this firm.
Goldman Sachs are Democrats. Former Socialist Governor Jon Corzine used to be the CEO before being fired for being himself. Long before that, Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin came from Goldman.
Goldman rakes in huge bonuses, Democratic administrations rail against Wall Street Greed, and both sides laugh it off. If Goldman actually believed the government would harm them, they would not have donated so much to Barack Obama.
Also, unlike the other entities, this is one even Republicans do not have the stomach to fight. Hank Paulson was a Goldman guy.
Barack Obama is not going to pick a fight with one of his biggest campaign donors. He will rail about greed, blame Republicans, and this will quietly fade away. Anybody who thinks that Robert Rubin and John Corzine are going to be investigated needs to have their head examined.
Mr. Obama may try to claim that Goldman was a pure entity until the George W. Bush Enron/Halliburton/Neocon Cabal took over, and that Goldman is pure now that they left, but this assertion would be too ludicrous even for some liberals, much less moderate reasonable voters.
As Bill Murray said in the movie Kingpin, “Finally,I am above the law. I can buy my way out of anything.”
Goldman Sachs is safe.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are twin corrupt entities. For years there were warnings that these two firms were on the precipice. They will escape serious scrutiny for the same reason they did back then.
(I never owned stock in either of these firms.)
Fannie and Freddie are seen as performing a noble social good. They help minorities own homes.
While increasing minority home ownership is a laudable goal, it cannot come at the expense of the entire financial system. Also, in another example of liberalism harming people it wanted to help through fake compassion, the mortgage crisis disproportionately hurt minorities.
Politically correct lending was not the only reason the financial system melted down. However, liberals are even more disingenuous than usual when they claim that such lending had zero to do with the collapse.
Fannie and Freddie are untouchable because three individuals will never be investigated.
Christopher Dodd, the drunken Senator who helped fellow drunk Ted Kennedy sexually assault a waitress, is up to his eyeballs in corruption scandals. He is resigning to avoid a humiliating loss at the polls in a state where he should win easily. When a man is too corrupt for Connecticut, there are few options left. Even New Jersey seems to be turning the corner with Chris Christie replacing Jon “Goldman Sachs” Corzine.
Barney Frank is not allowed to be criticized for any reason. He is a homosexual liberal. Unless he becomes a Republican (gay Republicans can be destroyed along with all minority conservatives), he will be able to play the homosexual card.
Barney Frank had one boyfriend operate a prostitution ring out of his home. He had another boyfriend operate a drug ring out of his home. He had an inappropriate sexual relationship with an officer of a company that his financial services panel was supposed to be regulating. Does anybody think a Republican could get away with this?
Any time anybody criticizes any of his inappropriate relationships, he accuses them of attacking his sexuality. Republicans, terrified of being seen as intolerant, give Mr. Frank a free pass.
There is nothing…absolutely nothing…about a person’s sexuality that in any way connects to their financial decisions. If I argue that capital gains taxes should be cut, Barney Frank will find a way to connect that to anti-gay bigotry.
In addition to Mr. Dodd and Mr. Frank, a third man who is beyond criticism will never be investigated. That man is former Fannie CEO Franklin Raines. Mr. Raines is a black Democrat (with Republicans it would be a Republican who happens to be black, but with Democrats the identity comes first).
Yet his race is not what gives him the most protection. Franklin Raines can bring down Bill Clinton, and nobody who can harm Bill Clinton is going to testify.
In 1995, Bill Clinton vetoed the 7 year balanced budget deal that Newt Gingrich and the Republicans passed. Dick Morris warned him that without a balanced budget deal, he would be vulnerable in 1996. He was dragged to the table kicking and screaming When Democrat praise Clinton and themselves for budget surpluses, they are liars. Islamist David Bonior fought it every step of the way, as did Dick Gephart. It was Gingrich that brought the surpluses, along with the internet boom.
Yet without Franklin Raines, there would have been no budget deal, eventually signed in 1997.
Raines gave Clinton cover. Clinton was soon facing an impeachment scandal in 1998. He needed the Congressional Black Caucus to save him. Raines was a proud public example of Clinton giving a black man heroic status.
Raines was less successful as the Fannie CEO. He drove the company into the ground, and was punished with a 100,000,000 dollar settlement package. This was a platinum parachute.
He will never be called on the carpet. While criticism of him by Republican may lead to the usual yawn inducing charges of racism, the bigger reason Raines is untouchable is because if he goes down, the entire 1997 budget deal gets discredited. Bill Clinton will get tarnished, but so will Newt Gingrich. Republicans effusively praised Raines at the time. Given that Republicans have surrendered the mantle of fiscal responsibility, they do not want the last group of Republicans to possess the high ground on that issue to lose their aura.
On the foreign policy front, the nation of Iran has a blank check to blow up Israel and anybody else it wants.
Liberals like to portray conservatives as warmongers itching to blow up Iran. Conservatives respond by claiming that liberals are doing nothing but curling up in a fetal position and hoping for the best. Liberals respond that they favor a middle ground in the form of tough sanctions.
The only problem is that the sanctions are never going to happen.
If liberals want to be honest, they should just say that Iran is not a threat. They should be allowed to have nuclear weapons because we have them, and fair is fair. We should not have the right to bully another nation (except Israel of course).
Sanctions against Iran will not happen. Not now, not ever. The Iranians are laughing all the way to the blood stained oil bank.
Russia and China do not want sanctions. They have a permanent veto. China and Russia do whatever they want whenever they want. Why? Because they can.
They have nuclear weapons. Once a nation has nukes, they have veto power. This is the very reason Iran cannot get them.
China and Russia oppress their own citizens. They are very bit as murderous of dissidents as the worst human rights violators. What do we say? Nothing.
(This is not to imply that I am obsessed with human rights. I am just pointing out liberal hypocrisy when they claim to care).
Even if the most watered down of sanctions were to somehow pass, they would be toothless. There will be no enforcement mechanisms.
The left falls back on the ridiculous notion that Iran will not bomb Israel because then they would be obliterated. This applies logical reasoning to a regime led by fanaticism and emotion. Armageddonijad may be nuts, but at least he is a true believer with principles, psychotic though those principles may be.
The Chinese own our debt. We cannot make them cooperate. We have no leverage. The Russians will do whatever they please. They also have oil we need.
Despite the fact that liberals constantly attack conservatives for Laissez Faire policies, Barack Obama is going to be the king of Laissez Faire.
Free passes are being handed out. If you are Goldman Sachs, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, or Iran, enjoy complete immunity from any prosecution or sanctions.
Anybody thinking otherwise should wait for sanctions on unicorns, a more likely occurrence.
eric
April 21st, 2010 at 12:57 pm
Well, you talk about the Maes and GS, but never dicuss teh details of what it is exactly they did.
In 2000, the Clinton administration, seeing a possible disaster ahead, placed stringent lending rules on Freddis and Fannie, forbidding high-risk lending. In 2004, the Bush administration dropped those rules. Starting in 2005,. Barney Frank began pushing to put thiose rules back in place, and though he was able to get some help from his GOP counterparts in the House, the Senate GOP wouldn’t budge. The president was never forced to put them back in place, and sure enough Freddie and Fannie, under Bush’s auspices, became mired in bad loans. Raines and others tried to bury some the problems in the books, which is why people like Frank were caught unawares when F&F finally went down. Meanwhile, Countrywide was most likely writing liars loans to F&F and they’ll be next up on charges, mark my words.
So, here you had a combination of bad policy, some internal corruption, and a lot of external corruption. You disseminate none of that.
Goldman, meanwhile, is a friggin’ malaignant cancer spread all over the world. They are crooked to the core. And don’t think they’re “Democrats.” Sure, some of them are - that’s probably becauise the stock market ALWAYS fares better when the Democrats control the levers of power. But plenty of money goes to Republican leadership as well, and plenty of regulators from the GOP years are now working for crooked outfits like Goldman. What Goldman apparently did is downright criminal - short selling against some of their own customers for some of their others. In the end, Goldman actually lost money on this, but a few guys within and doing business with Goldman made a fortune. This is worse than insider trading - this is throwing the game!
As for Iran, sanctions are irrelevent. They’re going to do what they’re going to do. Liberal, conservative, Democrat, Republican - no US government has had any luck with these guys sine the revolution. The only way things are going to change is if there’s another revolution. We should just quietly and covertly work with the dissidents, bribe whoever we can in the military, and hope we can get rid of that monstrous theocracy for once and for all. Sanctions, threats, violence - all will only harden the hard-liners. We need a Fourth Way.
JMJ
April 21st, 2010 at 7:11 pm
JMJ;
“. The president was never forced to put them back in place, and sure enough Freddie and Fannie, under Bush’s auspices, became mired in bad loans. ”
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. F$F and the banks were under pressure from the dems, their CRA, to make loans to those who couldnt afford them.
Both Bush and McCain addresed the 111th congress warning them of the impending doom.
Frank and Dodd tole em everything would be fine
““John McCain 2006 – Warning On Current Housing Crisis
Posted on September 20, 2008 by mcauleysworld
FEDERAL HOUSING ENTERPRISE REGULATORY REFORM ACT OF 2005
The United States Senate
May 25, 2006
Section 16
Mr. President, this week Fannie Mae’s regulator reported that the company’s quarterly reports of profit growth over the past few years were “illusions deliberately and systematically created” by the company’s senior management, which resulted in a $10.6 billion accounting scandal.
The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight’s report goes on to say that Fannie Mae employees deliberately and intentionally manipulated financial reports to hit earnings targets in order to trigger bonuses for senior executives. In the case of Franklin Raines, Fannie Mae’s former chief executive officer, OFHEO’s report shows that over half of Mr. Raines’ compensation for the 6 years through 2003 was directly tied to meeting earnings targets. The report of financial misconduct at Fannie Mae echoes the deeply troubling $5 billion profit restatement at Freddie Mac.
The OFHEO report also states that Fannie Mae used its political power to lobby Congress in an effort to interfere with the regulator’s examination of the company’s accounting problems. This report comes some weeks after Freddie Mac paid a record $3.8 million fine in a settlement with the Federal Election Commission and restated lobbying disclosure reports from 2004 to 2005. These are entities that have demonstrated over and over again that they are deeply in need of reform.
For years I have been concerned about the regulatory structure that governs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac–known as Government-sponsored entities or GSEs–and the sheer magnitude of these companies and the role they play in the housing market. OFHEO’s report this week does nothing to ease these concerns. In fact, the report does quite the contrary. OFHEO’s report solidifies my view that the GSEs need to be reformed without delay.
I join as a cosponsor of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, S. 190, to underscore my support for quick passage of GSE regulatory reform legislation. If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole.
I urge my colleagues to support swift action on this GSE reform legislation.
The Democrats Killed this measure in Committee preventing a full Senate Vote.
Barack Obama voted against this reform.
See the original Senate Record here: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/record.xpd?id=109-s20060525-16&bill=s109-
April 21st, 2010 at 7:24 pm
Micky, are you refuting factual recent history? BUSH LOOSENED THE LENDING REGS!
And that letter had nothing to do with the collapse, Micky. Jeez man. That was a separate corruption issue!
jmj
April 21st, 2010 at 10:14 pm
Itsall tied together Jersey.
You guys would love to pick and choose just so you could blame only conservatives.
“Recent factual history “?
You mean like “take Jerseys word for it history “?
McCain;
” If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole.”
Get it ? “AND THE ECONOMY AS A WHOLE “!!!!
April 21st, 2010 at 10:26 pm
The point is that you guys want to demonize Wall St. only and not take responsability for the precursor to all this which started a long time ago.
The liberal method of bribing its constituents for votes by offering entitlements and housing they cant afford has now caught up with the end line. The red line.
Goldman Sachs is all of a sudden the boogey man huh ?
How convenient.