Federal authorities ended two investigations into the actions of Goldman Sachs during the financial crisis, handing a quiet victory to the bank after years of public scrutiny.
In a rare statement late Thursday, the Justice Department said there was “not aviable basis to bring a criminal prosecution” against Goldman or its employees after a Congressional committee asked prosecutors to investigate several mortgage deals at the bank. Federal prosecutors are typically loath to acknowledge the closing of a case, doing so publicly in only a handful of instances over the last several years.
The Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations had examined troubled mortgage securities that Goldman sold toinvestors, who later sustained steep losses during the crisis. The subcommittee also suggested prosecutors investigate whether the chief executive ofthe bank, Lloyd Blankfein , had misled lawmakers during public testimony.
Separately, Goldman Sachs announced early Thursday that the Securities and Exchange Commission had ended an investigation into a$1.3 billion subprimemortgage deal, taking no action. Themove was an about-face for the commission, which notified the bank in February that it planned to pursue a civil action.
“We are pleased thatthis matter is behind us,” a bank spokesman said Thursday.
The moves closed a difficult chapter for the bank, whose missteps became emblematic of Wall Street’s excess. But for all the public criticism of the bank,the only law enforcement case to have surfaced against Goldman wasa civil case that the bank settled for $550million in 2010 over a mortgage investment that investigators said had been intended to collapse.
The announcements were also the latest indication that federal investigations into the financial crisis were petering out asthe deadline to file cases approached. While the S.E.C. has brought more than 100 financial crisis-related cases, the agency was looking to take on a big case aimed at punishing Wall Street for its role in the crisis.
After President Obama announced the creation of a special task force in January to investigate the residential mortgagemess, the S.E.C. and other authorities vowed to hold the banks accountable. Wall Street packagedand sold subprime mortgages, includingto the government-owned mortgage finance giants FannieMae and Freddie Mac , that suffered billions of dollars in losses.
The subcommittee, led by Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, focused on a group of mortgage deals that Goldman had arranged and sold. Mr. Levin further suggested that Mr. Blankfein might havemisled lawmakers when testifying about the deals.
But in a statement on Thursday, the Justice Department said it “ultimately concluded that the burden of proof to bring a criminal case could not be met based on the law and facts as they exist at this time.” The agency said it would pursue the case again if new evidence emerged.

Of course. What did you all expect?




Of course they are. But where was the bank spokesman to answer questions before they were let off the hook for manipulating the markets? They were unavailable for comment.

And of course they were let off. If the truth came out it would disrupt the entire American economy because it is the government who is actually manipulating the market. The banks are just going along with it.

There is no one to prosecute the criminals because they are all criminals.

Here is what jsnip4, realists news has to say about it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFlRBR5IskM&feature=em-uploademail

Goldman Sachs

Goldman Sachs has a derivative exposure of $44.192 Trillion dollars.
The $1 Trillion pillars towers are double-stacked @ 930 feet (248 m).
The White House is standing next to the Statue of Liberty.

Goldman Sachs has advantage over other banks because it has awesome
connections in US Government. A lot of former Goldman employees hold high-level
US Government positions (chart).

Mitt Romney's top donor is Goldman Sachs, and one of Obama's best donors.
Ex-CEO of Goldman Sachs, Hank Paulson became the Secretary of Treasury under Bush and
during the 2008 financial crisis authored the TARP bill demanding $700 billion bail-out.
In UK, Goldman Sachs escaped £10 million bill on a failed tax avoidance scheme with help of good connections.
The bank is the largest player in the food commodities market, earned $955m from food speculation in 2009" - That's your $$$.
Goldman Sachs employees are arming themselves with guns in case there is a populist uprising against the bank.
Goldman Sachs calls their investors "muppets". and use clients to make money for themselves, disregarding the clients.
The bank was fined $22 million for sharing valuable nonpublic information with top clients (Think insider trading with best clients).
Goldman Sachs was part-owner America's leading website for prostitution ads until the ownership stake was exposed.
Goldman Sachs helped Greece conceal its debt with secret loans, while simultaneously taking advantage of Greece.
Goldman Sachs got a $814 billion SECRET bailout from the Federal Reserve during the 2008 crisis.
Goldman Sachs got $10 billion of the 2008 TARP bailout, and in the same year paid $10.9 billion in employee compensation and "benefits", while paying a tax rate of 1%. That means an average of $327,000 to each Goldman Sach's employee.


A very interesting website:

http://demonocracy.info/infographics/usa/derivatives/bank_exposure.html

Bank of America

Bank of America has a derivative exposure of $50.135 Trillion dollars.

BofA is sticking the tax-payers with a MASSIVE bill, by moving derivatives to
accounts insured by the federal government @ total of $53.7 trillion as of 06/2011.
During 2011-12 BofA has been in need of cash, so Warren Buffett gave BofA $5 billion.
Same year BofA sold its stake in China Construction Bank to raise $1.8 billion in cash.


Bank of America paid $22 million to settle charges of improperly foreclosing on active-duty troops
BofA recruited 3 cyber attack firms to attack WikiLeaks. but the Anonymous hacker group hacked the security firms first.
BofA was sued for $31 billion in home-loan losses in 2011, the bank is involved in many lawsuits, too many to document.
BofA also received a SECRET $1.344 trillion dollar bailout from the Federal Reserve.

Citibank

Citibank has a derivative exposure of $52.102 Trillion dollars.
The $1 Trillion dollar towers are double-stacked @ 930 feet (248 m).

Citibank customers have been arrested for trying to close their accounts, while in in Indonesia a man was interrogated to death in Citibank's special "questioning room". In 2011 Citibank paid a fine of $285 million for selling home-loan backed bonds to investors, while betting they would lose value (think derivatives/insurance). The man in charge of the unit at Citibank became Obama's Chief of Staff. 2 weeks before getting hired by Obama he got $900,000 from Citibank for great performance. This was after Citigroup took out $45 billion in bailout money.
Citibank knowingly passed over bad loans to the Federal Housing Administration to insure.

Citigroup also received a SECRET $2.513 trillion dollar bailout from the Federal Reserve.

9 Biggest Banks' Derivative Exposure - $228.72 Trillion

Note the little man standing in front of white house. The little worm next to lastfootball field is a truck with $2 billion dollars.
There is no government in the world that has this kind of money. This is roughly 3 times the entire world economy. The unregulated market presents a massive financial risk. The corruption and immorality of the banks makes the situation worse.

If you don't want to bank with these banks, but want to have access to free ATM's anywhere-- most Credit Unions in USA are in the CO-OP ATM network, where all ATM's are free to any COOP CU member and most support depositing checks. The Credit Unions are like banks, but invest all their profits to give members lower rates and better service. They don't have shareholders to worry about or have derivatives to purchase and sell.

Keep an eye out in the news for "derivative crisis", as the crisis is inevitable with current falling value of most real assets.
Derivative Data Source: ZeroHedge

There is simply not that much money in the world. Period.

There has been several thousand people, stock brokers, employees of insurance companies/mortgage companies/credit rating agencies financial institutions getting fabulously rich and creating a global financial catastrophe and not one of them has seen the inside of a prison cell...why?

They would not get away scott-free in China

Many of these people operated out of New York. America has approximately 2 million people incarcerated, the vast majority are there for victimless crimes.

SEC? Oh damn, wrong thread...I thought it was college football..

you can't prosecute the people that are funding your campaigns..

duh

Exactly.