GE
Capital overstated Momentive's value in December 2008 to improve its own
balance sheet, he said. Valuing the asset correctly would have reduced
“GE Capital's earnings 100 percent,” in the fourth quarter that year,
according to the complaint.
“Mr.
Gormbley refused to play GE's game and just ‘get along,” according to
the filing. “GE and GE Capital's response was direct, unmistakable and
as subtle as a hangman's noose.”
I am sure there is nothing to this..... Why would GE have overstated
it’s income? The goal was to "manage" the income statement according to
the law suit. That would never happen at GE. Right?? If something like
that did happen it would not have been material. Nothing like the 100%
claimed. Right? The folks at GECC in Stamford are fighting this one
tooth and nails. Their view:
“The
allegations in Mr. Gormbley's complaint are meritless,” Russell
Wilkerson, a spokesman for Fairfield, Connecticut-based GE, said in an
e-mailed statement. “The company will vigorously defend itself against
these baseless assertions.”
GE’s lawyers are going to crush Mr. Gormbley I suspect. Why shouldn’t
they? They have never played fast and lose with accounting have they?
Heaven help us (and GE’s stock) if Mr. Gormbley prevails.
Goldman fined ... AGAIN !
Goldman fined $30M for failure to report to British financial regulators that senior management personnel were under investigation by regulatory agencies in the US.
That statement alone tells a lot about the situation at Goldman. How many times GS been fined for breaking the rules? They get fined for breaking the rules, not telling that they were caught cheating in a prior investigation.
Goldman is carrying on with business as usual even when they are exposed and fined in CRIMINAL activity. GS has the lawyers telling them exactly what they can and cannot get away with.
Goldman's management never goes out to lunch without first checking with their lawyers.
This latest breach is not just a mistake, an oversight.
They knew exactly what they are doing, and do so anyway knowing full well that the fine payable is going to be modest.
$30M sounds like a lot of money, but the compensation pool for 2010 is $16 billion.
Goldman was fined a rounding error of the total money sloshing around.
It is sad that the small fines and constant regulatory action is doing nothing to curtail the corporate culture of breaking whatever rules to make money. If they disclosed that the senior people in the UK were already under investigation, then some big deals would have fallen through. The commission payable off those deals amounted to much more than the fines.
Goldman lawyers have tucked away the spread sheets which identify sleazy deals, who cares that a few of them are exposed and fines are levied.
No one ever goes to jail for this misconduct.
How much have the rules been bent at the COMEX?
How many illegal trades have been deliberately overlooked?
What value is ethical behaviour when the breach of ethics to manipulate the market is so profitable? Where is the deterrent if the penalty is trivial?
Goldman pays their lawyers more in one year than that fine.
Discuss the topic of manipulation of the markets, hear that no such thing happens because markets are highly regulated. Manipulation is laughed off by those who think illegal trading only happens by rogues. Senior management would not sit by if they were aware that rules were being broken.
The frequent penalties and fines on these big firms tells otherwise. One does not have to look very far to see examples ... Enron ... Madoff. Mafia crooks are able to carry on because of other people were participating, signing off on fraud as it was in process.
This is NOT about isolated misbehaviour on the part of rogue traders. This is systemic corruption, lack of political/moral/ethical resolve to deal with this by regulatory agencies.
Impose REAL fines on GS and throw the principals in jail.
Those who think gold and silver are not manipulated, who believe the regulatory regime is sufficient, that markets are free and fair, live in a fantasy land.
The evidence is right there in black and white.
The COMEX scam will be exposed ... the paper metal contracts will end up in default.
The chattering class of MORONS will shrug their shoulders and suggest no one could have seen this coming.
VIVA LeMet !
I remember reading this at the time - I fail to understand why you should be exempted from reporting such things for national security reasons. It's a reminder how insane the nation became during the Bush regime..
As for GE, we used the GE accounts as the case study in an advanced accounting course I took years ago and it astonished me how one of the world's leading industrial companies would use such tricks. Then came Enron, Worldcom, AOL, Tyco, Global Crossing, Lehman, Citi, AIG etc etc, and it became patently obvious that only a fool would think you can make investment decisions from top line numbers produced under FASB rules...
John C. Coffee, a securities-law professor at Columbia University, speculated that defense contractors might want to use such an exemption to mask secret assignments for the Pentagon or CIA. "What you might hide is investments: You've spent umpteen million dollars that comes out of your working capital to build a plant in Iraq," which the government wants to keep secret. "That's the kind of scenario that would be plausible," Coffee said.
I'm not buying it, but the masses probably wouldn't question it .
When the thieving, lying and corruption become so rampant and pervasive that revealing it threatens the very existence of the state, then those in power declare that it has become a matter of national security to hide the thieving, lying and corruption.
This is an age old truism. The very things that threaten the state if exposed must be covered up to save the state, thus ensuring more of the same.
Insanity.
Man, CD:
That was an upper cut to the Oligarchy nut sack...
I stridently concur, and thanks for the trip down Memory Lane, CD.
But it can't matter, really, because for 2009, GE paid NO fed taxes, so it really doesn't matter after all........
Bill a big order last day of the quarter, write a credit for it next day.
Back when Cramer was worth reading (pre-TV) I think he used to say that a good rule of thumb was: Accounting Irregularities = Sell.
If nothing else this kind of situation means that other market participants likely have a significant informational advantage over you (they are in a better position to know what's really going on) and it's time to play with another stock.
I think it was recently written by our Grandmaster himself (Bruce) that his stock answer to any investment question "is to short GE".
the entirety of financials' accounting is total enronized bullshit
one bad day, everything will go to zero
They'll probably get a 50$ fine and the stock will go up.
LOL
LOL LOL
Classic
What they say is at times GE financed the dividend payments. Not enough profit for Jack's Diapers and the dividend.