Goldman Sachs $550 Million Slap On The Wrist

Goldman Sachs $550 Million Slap On The Wrist

You see that? YOU SEE THAT?! The biggest damn fine levied against a business. Boooyah! It's time to pay the piper, oh yes...

Goldman Sachs has agreed to pay $550 million to settle SEC charges that it defrauded investors. In 2007, Goldman worked with a hedge fund manager to set up an investment that allowed investors to bet on the housing boom. It didn't tell investors that it had allowed the hedge fund manager to select many of the mortgages that made up the security.

Wait.. WHAT? Seriously? That's it? That's all we're going to fine them for helping in crippling our financial system?

They're paying less money for their part of the financial crisis than Tiger Woods is in his divorce to Elin Nordegren. Yup, Woods will be paying his former wife between $750 million and $833 for fucking everything with a pair of tits and in return for such a big payment, she can never publicly speak about the affairs.



We don't even get some stipulation out of this like "Goldman Sachs can never practice security exchanges again" sort of thing. All this means is that they'll find a method to cheat people that is less obvious.

Goldman will also change several business practices, including the way it draws up marketing materials for complex mortgage securities and the way it educates employees in that part of its business.

never again will we use such an easily investigated system for fraud we gotta make it tougher to crack. If corporations get as many rights as people, then why can't we imprison and execute companies for their crimes against society? Oh wait, we don't imprison and execute the rich. My bad.

I want to live in a world where I'm able to rob a bank for $100k and then let them fine me for $20k and then having it be as if all is well. I'm sure 550m is just a fraction of a percent of the amount of money they actually made from all this.

In after-hours trading yesterday, GS spiked up more than $13 from before the news of the settlement. It seems people want to invest in a company that just bought itself out of trouble. Given their 515 million outstanding shares, that means their company gained a value of approximately $6.7 billion dollars since the news was released.

But man, IT WAS ONE OF THE LARGEST PENALTIES EVER PAID TO THE SEC! This is literally 3% of the tarp money they got, by way of AIG. In 2009 Goldman reported a $1.8 billion profit.



So how much is $550 million to Goldman? About 4 days worth of revenue. If you tally up according to 2009's revenue, that is. I can't even say it's like a min. wage worker getting fined $250 because to their 51 billion dollar ass, losing 4 days of revenue is pretty minor, rather than what happens with a min. wage worker is that they are probably going to be super tight to cope with the new budgetary expense.

Did you see the cool bit of info about how that 550m is getting cut up?

The S.E.C. filed a lawsuit against Goldman in April, accusing the bank of securities fraud. The settlement came just days before Goldman is scheduled to report its second-quarter earnings.

Under the terms of the deal, Goldman will pay $300 million in fines to the Treasury Department, with the rest serving as restitution to investors in the mortgage-linked security. Goldman will not admit wrongdoing, though it will admit that its marketing materials for the investment “contained incomplete information.”

So the tax payers only get $300 million and the other $250 million goes to share holders. Man, they must be tickled pink. I know what you're thinking, $550 million may not be a lot of money but Goldman lost their reputati..... Ha, as if Goldman even cares about what the public eye sees anymore. This fine is almost, just almost as much as their CEO's annual bonus.

As much as I joke around about it, this is probably the most horrible news I have heard all week. And what's depressing is that no one realizes it or even cares. We've all become complicity numb to the thievery that happens in the white collar area.

Just look at the unprivileged. If you get caught selling a single joint the cops can take away your house and car because those gains are ill gotten. Here's a time the government stole a man's life savings because it might have been gained through illegal means. They had no evidence as such, and the guy was never charged with a crime, but, man, all that money sure looked shady.

The district court found there it was not more likely than not that the money was drug related, thereby giving they money back to its rightful owner and the appellate court reversed.

The Evidence: (1) the amount of the money; (2) that it was in a cooler packaged in an unusual way (no evidence was presented on what made it unusual beyond the method of packaging); (3) that a drug-sniffing dog sniffed the money and reacted (Note that the dissent raises the issue that most money in circulation tests positive for cocaine to no effect.); (4) the driver was out of state; (5) it was a rental car and the rental contract was not in the driver's name.

That didn't even meet a prima facie showing much less the burden of persuasion. Just goes to show you how fucked up our social structure is that many of you have already just given up and realized that the rich or those with celebrity get off with a slap on the wrist.

Though, it's not like if we saw the SEC get a trillion billion dollars in monopoly money from Goldman it wouldn't make a lick of difference. As if you'd ever see any of that money actually put to good use by the Security Exchange Committee.