senate banking committee

They Got Away With It

dojlogoIt there was ever a message from our government, it's this. If someone has enough money and power, they can get away with anything. There will be no consequence and no punishment for the rich and powerful.

Once again, Goldman Sachs gets completely away with it. The Department of Justice, closed the books on pursuing Goldman Sachs. Now this is most interesting, you cannot find the statement, press release, nothing on the DOJ website or anywhere. Some claim the DOJ statement is in Goldman Sachs 10-Q, but no, not there either.

About the only place you can get the DOJ statement, it appears, is ABC News, second hand and not directly uploaded.

Based on the law and evidence as they exist at this time, there is not a viable basis to bring a criminal prosecution with respect to Goldman Sachs or its employees in regard to the allegations set forth in the report.”

Jamie's Round Up

rounduplassoThe Senate Committee on Banking held a hearing, A Breakdown in Risk Management: What Went Wrong at JPMorgan Chase? They had one witness, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon.

This one man apology show is about the $2 billion or greater trading loss JPMorgan Chase incurred due to speculative derivatives.

Truth be told the hearing was softball, not a grilling. This should be no surprise since JPMorgan Chase gives a lot of campaign contributions including those on the Senate Banking Committee.

Dimon revealed very little about the trade and not much more about his knowledge of it. He refused to discuss details of it, lest he reveal secrets to competitors -- who already know all about the trade and have been hammering JPMorgan on it, adding to the bank's losses. But the committee didn't challenge him on that, even after he turned down an offer to close the hearing to the public.

Bloomberg's story quote implies the Senators plain don't understand derivatives:

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Senate Banking Committee Hearing

On May 20th, U.S. Treasury Secretary Geithner testified before the Senate Banking Committee on TARP Oversight.

Our Senators, bi-partisan, asked some very good common sense questions.

This hearing was right before Geithner announced they will be using the
Wall Street Plan
(read Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase) for OTC derivatives trading, a seemingly contradiction of his earlier May 13th proposal.

Below are excerpts from the committee questioning.

Senator Mark Warner asks why AIG paid out on credit default swaps at 100%, in particular to Goldman Sachs: