Congress, SEC and Goldman Sachs Failures -- Part 2

What a great article, someone who puts the blame more correctly where it is deserved. No position in GS

Again the overall basis for generating profit at Goldman and JP Morgan is creating the need for massive amounts of trades.

When you make $3-10 on every trade executed you want to push as many through the door as possible. You create computer programs whose sole purpose is to book trades. They trade with computers from other firms and just keep raking in the trading commissions. It becomes trading just for the sake of trading.

Goldman and the other investment banks created funds that served no real economic purpose but created an opportunity for these worthless investments to be exchanged in order to generate trading commissions.

A ban on automated electronic trading must be passed. The stock market functioned just fine without the massive trading algorithms. In fact it operated better and without the massive intraday moves that are so commonplace now.

You can't find anyone that can actually explain why the market behaves like it does. We are all just tracing the steps of a computer program trying to figure out where it is sending us.

Truly we may need to ask the question if a computer was programmed to enter $0 bids for certain stocks last Thursday causing a massive plunge just so the computer could purchase massive amounts of shares at a few pennies netting the owner of the system millions of dollars in a microsecond.

We know that these systems are simultaneously shorting stocks and taking long positions. They are automated to increase the price of certain stocks in the few moments before the market opens. For many stocks there is no possible way to justify the gains they have had over the past year. The fundamentals aren't there.

Again nobody cares to look and see if there is a problem when the market goes up. It is only a problem when the errors cause the market to go down and lose a billionaire a part of his fortune.

Sheldon, you said a mouthful but it also runs with the famous Rhett Butler line of Frankly, I don't give a damn.

The repeal of Glass-Steagal and the complexity of monetary trading sums it up as in this aftermath all of this voodoo style trading emerges. The first of this crap was the derivative market. So well understood that many of the initial attempts wound up in court, and it went on from there. There is little point in re-hashing this as it is now old hat. We all know how we got into the present mess, and yes, I agree, the blame is squarely on those that sit on the "hill". I have posted so many times in the past on how inadequate OFHEO was that I qualify as the proverbial bitch. Truth is, that agency did nothing more than echo the thoughts of the likes of Barney Franks, who I also feel is one of our nations biggest A.H.'s, supported by the rest that sat/sit on the House Finance committee. Second in line are the counterparts in the Senate on the Banking committee.

However, what can we do but watch. It is like the writing on the door of a men's room stall that said " you can't go here - you sent your - - to Washington. How true, how true, it seems that the crowd that are there are there for the sole purpose of being self-serving and serving special interests. The people be damned, and damned we are.

Typical of their knowledge and understanding is the latest on health care. The great panacea which is doing nothing but further increasing cost. I just received notification that I will be paying much more as of June 1st - and hell, I am on medicare. Usually my cost rises each year as I grow older, but this one is due to "the increased cost of health care". Very timely. Congress increased the insurance companies cost - and they are simply passing it on. Congress did not do squat about breaking up the monopoly and the companies still enjoy anti-trust exemption. Congress did not do squat about working on some uniform costs from the medical establishment. By the time this culminates a few years from now - I think that the consensus of opinion will be that they just made things worse.

Band aids and corrective action aside - the events happened - we are here. Where we go next will soon be in the hands of the voters and as I have said in a previous post - we have the technology to reclaim our vested right and simply use our representatives to construct legislation to which,WE, not them, vote and have final say.

Pipe dream, if the Tea party wanted a motivation, the return of power to the people would be it.

Our politicians and bureaucrats enjoy working for the taxpayer and would like us to join them working for the government.
Unfortunately, most of them have no understanding from whence the money/goods come. Most of them (except perhaps Ron Paul) are in it for the money.
They're happy to sell their vote to large corporations because they know that's where much THEIR money comes from.
The corporate heads don't care about the quality of life for families below them, they are trained to make a profit at any cost.
Until the last several years hard working, small, producters have managed to keep themselves and their workers in the style they have grown accumstomed to but they can't compete with China and Mexico wages and still turn a profit.
The ultimate game of the worldwide, ruling class, banking elite, is to consolidate large business on a country level into even larger global corporations. They learned from agri-business it's much easier to shake down a few large giant corporations than it is to waste time collecting small returns from multiple small businesses (or farms).
Don't worry. With Washington's help they will create jobs eventually.
They may not pay as much but they will create jobs. They don't want social unrest.
Think of this "recession" as an experiment in teaching us (the little business guys)who is boss but it's gone even farther then they possibly intended.
The banking elite almost had us believing the big banks WERE actually too big to fail. But they did convince those in Congress.
Engergy costs have tripped them up. They even had to raid the Treasury to keep afloat. With nary a backlash.
They also mis calculated the will of the muslim desert men. They didn't just roll over and lower the price of oil. So we'll keep fighting for them to maintain the staus quo.
The elite, and their representatives, known as the FED, might be starting to feel the heat now there is a move afoot to actually peer into their machinations.
The best thing that could happen would be for them to go broke and every politician that is playing the game for them need to go as well.
Perhaps the people are starting to wake up.
It's 1968 and we won't get fooled again.
If you want a better world for your children we'd better pick up our swords and pitchforks and march on Washington while we still can.
To the media it's a game in which they are willing participants.
It won't be supporting you. It will be busy trying to brainwash you.
We are the children of the free and soon we will be gone too.
The system needs to be turned upside down again.
I'm joining the Tea Party.

MC

Ron Paul is a member of the House committee on finance, headed by Barney Franks.

So much for Ron Paul and all of his nonsense rhetoric.

As such, the whole crowd is either in someones pocket or simply does not understand the real world.

Is there a major difference?