'The Fourteenth Banker,' Anonymous Bank Insider, Describes His M. "The system is built to be gamed.
" "The voices of dissent are not being heard. " These are the words of an anonymous executive at one of America's 10 largest banks, who after many years of watching the worst of Wall Street's ethics transform his company, has decided to speak out. (Scroll down for the Q&A) Goldman’s reputation in tatters. It’s not easy to parse a one-sentence statement, but Goldman’s declaration that “the SEC’s charges are completely unfounded in law and fact and we will vigorously contest them and defend the firm and its reputation” seems ill-advised to me, mainly because it’s so obviously untrue.
It might be hard to successfully prosecute Goldman — they have a lot of very expensive lawyers, and securities law is murky at the best of times. But there’s enough in the way of smoking guns in the SEC’s complaint that it’s ridiculous to say that it’s “completely unfounded in fact”. It makes a lot of sense here to do the old-fashioned thing and follow the money.
Why was ACA so quiet about the fact that it wasn’t really picking the securities in the CDO it was nominally managing? Because it was being paid millions of dollars for its silence. $1 Billion Turns Into $14. The CDO involved in the Goldman lawsuit cost investors on the wrong side of the trade about $1 billion.
Goldman Sachs (GS) is down $25 at the moment, which translates into $14.5 billion of market cap. Are these charges going to cost Goldman $14.5 billion?