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How Goldman Controls The New York Fed: 47.5 Hours Of "The Secret Goldman Sachs Tapes" Explain
When nearly a year ago we reported about the case of "Goldman whistleblower" at the NY Fed, Carmen Segarra, who alleged she was wrongfully terminated after she flagged "numerous conflicts of interest and breaches of client ethics [involving Goldman] that she believed warranted a downgrade of Goldman's regulatory rating" and which were ignored due to the intimate, and extensively documented on these pages, proximity between Goldman and either one-time NY Fed Chairman and former Goldman director Stephen Friedman or current NY Fed president and former Goldman employee Bill Dudley, we said:
as everyone knows, both Bill Dudley and Stephen Friedman used to be at Goldman, and as we noted Dudley and Goldman chief economist Jan Hatzius periodically did and still meet to discuss "events" at the Pound and Pense.
So while her allegations may be non-definitive, and her wrongfful termination suit is ultimately dropped, there is hope this opens up an inquiry into the close relationship between Goldman and the NY Fed. Alas, since the judicial branch is also under the control of the two abovementioned entities, we very much doubt it.
There was hope, but as we said: we doubted it would lead to much more. It didn't: in April, the NY Fed won the dismissal of her lawsuit:
U.S. District Judge Ronnie Abrams in Manhattan ruled that the failure by the former examiner, Carmen Segarra, to connect her disclosure of Goldman's alleged violations to her May 2012 firing was "fatal" to her whistleblower lawsuit. Abrams also said Segarra could not file an amended lawsuit.
"Congress sought to protect employees of banking agencies ... who adequately allege that they have suffered retaliation for providing information regarding a possible violation of a 'law or regulation,'" the judge wrote. "Plaintiff has not done so."
Segarra's findings that Goldman's conflict-of-interest practices may have violated merely an "advisory letter" that did not carry the force of law did not entitle her to whistleblower protection under the Federal Deposit Insurance Act, Abrams said.
The fact that the judge on the case was conflicted, and had a close relationship to Goldman which was represented by her husband also a lawyer, clearly was "irrelevant":
In her ruling on Wednesday, Abrams also rejected a move by Stengle for greater disclosure by the judge about her husband's relationship with Goldman Sachs. Abrams disclosed on April 3 that she had just learned that her husband, Greg Andres, a partner at Davis Polk & Wardwell, was representing Goldman in an advisory capacity.
Stengle said at the time she would not seek Abrams' recusal, the judge said, and went ahead the next day with scheduled oral arguments on the defendants' bid to dismiss the case.
But on April 11, Stengle made a written request for a "more complete disclosure" of Andres' relationship with Goldman, and Abrams' own working relationship with another defense lawyer.
Abrams said that was too late, given that Segarra by then would have had a chance to "sample the temper of the court" and perhaps anticipate she would lose unless Abrams recused herself. "The timing of plaintiff's requests suggests that she is engaging in precisely the type of 'judge-shopping' the 2nd Circuit has cautioned against," Abrams wrote, referring to the federal appeals court in New York. "Such an attempt to engage in judicial game-playing strikes at the core of our legal system."
One has to either laugh, or weep, because that statement alone merely confirmed what we said a year ago when we said that "the judicial branch is also under the control of the two abovementioned entities", namely the NY Fed and Goldman.
In any event, the Segarra case disappeared from the public eye, and was promptly forgotten by the just as corrupted media and the public.
At least until this morning, when ProPublica's Jake Bernstein revealed something quite stunning: "Segarra had made 46 hours of secret audio recordings to bolster her case about what was happening at Goldman and with her bosses.
In a partnership with This American Life, Bernstein dissects the tapes, which portray a New York Fed that is at times reluctant to push hard against Goldman and struggling to define its authority. For example, in a meeting recorded the week before she was fired, Segarra's boss asks her at least seven times to change her finding that Goldman was missing a policy to handle conflicts of interest, saying, "Why do you have to do this?"
The full ProPublica story can be found here.
And for those who are time-constrained, and would rather just read the Cliff Notes (the ending should be known to everyone by now), here is Michael Lewis with an op-ed in Bloomberg summarizing the banker-controlled farce the entire US system has devolved to:
"The Secret Goldman Sachs Tapes"
Probably most people would agree that the people paid by the U.S. government to regulate Wall Street have had their difficulties. Most people would probably also agree on two reasons those difficulties seem only to be growing: an ever-more complex financial system that regulators must have explained to them by the financiers who create it, and the ever-more common practice among regulators of leaving their government jobs for much higher paying jobs at the very banks they were once meant to regulate. Wall Street's regulators are people who are paid by Wall Street to accept Wall Street's explanations of itself, and who have little ability to defend themselves from those explanations.
Our financial regulatory system is obviously dysfunctional. But because the subject is so tedious, and the details so complicated, the public doesn't pay it much attention.
That may very well change today, for today -- Friday, Sept. 26 --- the radio program "This American Life" will air a jaw-dropping story about Wall Street regulation, and the public will have no trouble at all understanding it.
The reporter, Jake Bernstein, has obtained 47½ hours of tape recordings, made secretly by a Federal Reserve employee, of conversations within the Fed, and between the Fed and Goldman Sachs. The Ray Rice video for the financial sector has arrived.
First, a bit of background -- which you might get equally well from today's broadcast. After the 2008 financial crisis, the New York Fed, now the chief U.S. bank regulator, commissioned a study of itself. This study, which the Fed also intended to keep to itself, set out to understand why the Fed hadn't spotted the insane and destructive behavior inside the big banks, and stopped it before it got out of control. The "discussion draft" of the Fed's internal study, led by a Columbia Business School professor and former banker named David Beim, was sent to the Fed on Aug. 18, 2009.
It's an extraordinary document. There is not space here to do it justice, but the gist is this: The Fed failed to regulate the banks because it did not encourage its employees to ask questions, to speak their minds or to point out problems.
Just the opposite: The Fed encourages its employees to keep their heads down, to obey their managers and to appease the banks. That is, bank regulators failed to do their jobs properly not because they lacked the tools but because they were discouraged from using them.
The report quotes Fed employees saying things like, "until I know what my boss thinks I don't want to tell you," and "no one feels individually accountable for financial crisis mistakes because management is through consensus." Beim was himself surprised that what he thought was going to be an investigation of financial failure was actually a story of cultural failure.
Any Fed manager who read the Beim report, and who wanted to fix his institution, or merely cover his ass, would instantly have set out to hire strong-willed, independent-minded people who were willing to speak their minds, and set them loose on our financial sector. The Fed does not appear to have done this, at least not intentionally. But in late 2011, as those managers staffed up to take on the greater bank regulatory role given to them by the Dodd-Frank legislation, they hired a bunch of new people and one of them was a strong-willed, independent-minded woman named Carmen Segarra.
I've never met Segarra, but she comes across on the broadcast as a likable combination of good-humored and principled. "This American Life" also interviewed people who had worked with her, before she arrived at the Fed, who describe her as smart and occasionally blunt, but never unprofessional. She is obviously bright and inquisitive: speaks four languages, holds degrees from Harvard, Cornell and Columbia. She is also obviously knowledgeable: Before going to work at the Fed, she worked directly, and successfully, for the legal and compliance departments of big banks. She went to work for the Fed after the financial crisis, she says, only because she thought she had the ability to help the Fed to fix the system.
In early 2012, Segarra was assigned to regulate Goldman Sachs, and so was installed inside Goldman. (The people who regulate banks for the Fed are physically stationed inside the banks.)
The job right from the start seems to have been different from what she had imagined: In meetings, Fed employees would defer to the Goldman people; if one of the Goldman people said something revealing or even alarming, the other Fed employees in the meeting would either ignore or downplay it. For instance, in one meeting a Goldman employee expressed the view that "once clients are wealthy enough certain consumer laws don't apply to them." After that meeting, Segarra turned to a fellow Fed regulator and said how surprised she was by that statement -- to which the regulator replied, "You didn't hear that."
This sort of thing occurred often enough -- Fed regulators denying what had been said in meetings, Fed managers asking her to alter minutes of meetings after the fact -- that Segarra decided she needed to record what actually had been said. So she went to the Spy Store and bought a tiny tape recorder, then began to record her meetings at Goldman Sachs, until she was fired.
(How Segarra got herself fired by the Fed is interesting. In 2012, Goldman was rebuked by a Delaware judge for its behavior during a corporate acquisition. Goldman had advised one energy company, El Paso Corp., as it sold itself to another energy company, Kinder Morgan, in which Goldman actually owned a $4 billion stake, and a Goldman banker had a big personal investment. The incident forced the Fed to ask Goldman to see its conflict of interest policy. It turned out that Goldman had no conflict of interest policy -- but when Segarra insisted on saying as much in her report, her bosses tried to get her to change her report. Under pressure, she finally agreed to change the language in her report, but she couldn't resist telling her boss that she wouldn't be changing her mind. Shortly after that encounter, she was fired.)
I don't want to spoil the revelations of "This American Life": It's far better to hear the actual sounds on the radio, as so much of the meaning of the piece is in the tones of the voices -- and, especially, in the breathtaking wussiness of the people at the Fed charged with regulating Goldman Sachs. But once you have listened to it -- as when you were faced with the newly unignorable truth of what actually happened to that NFL running back's fiancee in that elevator -- consider the following:
1. You sort of knew that the regulators were more or less controlled by the banks. Now you know.
2. The only reason you know is that one woman, Carmen Segarra, has been brave enough to fight the system. She has paid a great price to inform us all of the obvious. She has lost her job, undermined her career, and will no doubt also endure a lifetime of lawsuits and slander.
So what are you going to do about it? At this moment the Fed is probably telling itself that, like the financial crisis, this, too, will blow over. It shouldn't.
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Hang on a second...........Was someone expecting the fed to regulate banks? A.) The fed is not a government regulatory agency B.) Goldman is a member of the federal reserve cartel. Anyone who thinks otherwise has no clue who the fed is or what they do. I realize most don't but I don't expect Zerohedge readers to be the least bit phased by this. Maybe if the public knew what the fed is and is not their outrage would be more appropriately directed.
"
"It turned out that Goldman had no conflict of interest policy -- but when Segarra insisted on saying as much in her report, her bosses tried to get her to change her report. Under pressure, she finally agreed to change the language in her report, but she couldn't resist telling her boss that she wouldn't be changing her mind. Shortly after that encounter, she was fired.)
Lessson numero uno Carmen, never forget it: "You don't shoot at the king unless you kill him".
Shoot him and if even a finger is still moving you are done for. Not that it will help you now.
Reminds one of Snowden's revelations. We all new what the surveillance state was up to but he , and Segarra, removed all doubts with concrete evidences. Now that the American people have been given so many and so much raw empirical evidence of malfeasence taking place in it's higher institutions and by those operating schemes there, the American people have decided to speak and have spoken.
Think global stall.
Focus on whats truly important. We must find a way to get past the monopoly of force. The only way that happens is either more force or the stall. More force is going to be more of the same. The stall could trump thier use of force.
Once it stalls real grand juries run outside of thier control should work very well.
Perhaps GS really was doing God's work after all...for now we have the Gospel of Segarra to read and listen to...all forty seven and one half hours of it...chuckle, chuckle.
I luv these kinds of articles, they state the obvious or post someone's information (not the writers own) and then say "and what are YOU going to do about it..."
Did Denninger write this...?
Still waiting for superman? Well son superman aint coming.
Nope, but apparently stupidman showed up...
So if I write an article I can claim I saved the world...? Sweet!
Here goes:
The government it corrupt, the banks own their regulating agencies and we are all tax serfs.
What are YOU going to do about it?
Boy that was easy. I feel so empowered now that I shifted the blame to you all. <facepalm>
Reminds one of the Snowden revelations. We all new what the surveillance state was up but Snowden, and Segarra, removed all doubts with their respective evidences. The American people have received so many and so much empirical evidence of malfeasance in their higher institutions with schemes of those people who operate there that the American people have decided top speak and have spoken.
Yes, and having learned that every electronically spoken word, text, email, post and picture was being saved for "national security" interests in perpetuity...
They did nothing.
Snowden was a plant to let all know that a boot heel was already poised above the head.
May the Farce be with You.
that's pretty amazing. Abrams should have recused herself under the rules, so far as I know. Is Segarra appealing - seems like there'd be a good basis. Presumably, the appeal would go to someone else with a connection to the vampire squid.
Or the ZOG generally.
She is appealing.
Maybe we can get Bart Chilton and Blythe Masters to arbitrate this matter; they aren't doing anything anymore. I mean, if you want a "fair and impartial" hearing that is. This incestuous shit never ends.
www.traderzoo.mobi
“She has lost her job, undermined her career, and will no doubt also endure a lifetime of lawsuits and slander. So what are you going to do about it?”
Absolutely nothing.
Why?
Americans will do nothing because, while they have the power to redress any grievance that could be named, they refuse to use this power. They don’t even know many of the most fundamental rights and powers won by our Revolution.
There are three main reasons for this failure: one is that they have no knowledge of such power; the second, they’ve been herded into a kind of impotent stupor by medication and indoctrination; the third, that they aid, benefit or were complicit in such evil (full article).
To begin, according to the law of redress, those who complain are supposed to also suggest a remedy, and, before you can do this, you have to get rid of that indoctrination and replace it with real facts of history.
As to the ignorance relative to lost American ideals: who knows that every American (preamble citizen) has the right to withhold taxes until government redresses his grievances; or that there is probably not a constitutional tax on the books, among other lost rights and powers? “Redress before taxes” was a “Grand Right” declared by the Continental Congress, which also declared it to be a reason for the Revolution. And, by the right of consent, repeatedly declared by the Continental Congress, requires that every person to must give his personal consent to every tax and law before he is obligated to pay or obey it.
I have great news for everyone: Americans won the Revolution; which makes these rights and powers our legacy. It really doesn’t matter tho: if American Founders had not declared, and won, them, we’d have to invent them.
However, until a few Americans (1%-2%) learn, and use, their legacy, people like Carmen Segarra will just have to suffer alone, and, eventually, be forgotten.
After all, what else should she expect for trying to save those who aren’t willing to lift a finger to save themselve?
Revolt?
It's hard enough trying to get people to stop voting along party lines.
There will be no revolt, there will be no "from my cold dead hands", the 2A folks will actually vote in the very person who will take their 2A rights from them. Romney signed an AWB in Mass and how many 2A believers voted for him in 2012? Lots and they'll even argue that Romney actually supported 2A rights by eliminating portions of those rights...
More and more I believe that those hallowed 'fathers' were very much like the current ilk in power. They likely wrote a bunch of great fiction to get the repressed to believe it was all done for them while they simply used said fiction to keep their power, mansions and slaves knowing that nobody would actually stand up against them.
It's the human condition to keep one's privileges at nearly any cost.
The socialist professor Mancur Olson, called it, The Logic of Collective action.
If a person's interests are barely harmed, regardless of the harm to all of society, culture, the economy, etc... the individual will not act. If the individual's interest is great however we will act. that is why we still have the sugar subsidy. Regardless of it's impact on the whole of society, driving up the price of sugar, the average Joe won't act because the damage to him is small, but a sugar farmer who's very livelihood is impacted... will know exactly where their congressman stands on the sugar subsidy.
That horrible smell in the air are the four cesspools that are The Federal Reserve, the TBTF banks, the judiciary and the unbiased media. I am always amazed that billions of dollars of fines are levied on financial institutions every year but not one banker, manager or board member goes to jail for the obvious malfeasance.
I wrote an article about corporate malfeasance a few years ago, I offer it here:
http://incapp.org/blog/?p=1795
...and another on how to actually solve TBTF:
http://incapp.org/blog/?p=1861
We're going to have to hang the bastards or do a Genghis Khan on their gated communities because: As George Orwell noted in his diaries, 'apparently nothing will ever teach these people that the other 99% of the population exists.'
Her name was Carmen Segarra.
His name was Michael Hastings.
RIP.
So I guess this means Sunday night's PM smackdown is gonna be EPIC.
Custer was a pussy!
What is equally amazing is that at least 70% of the people around us have no clue and still trust the system...........
Cop out.
It isn't easy to have to begin to see your own home country as evil. I don't think America is evil, far from it. Our nature and our founding fathers were right on the money as how best to govern a nation and allow for freedom and free economic life. Then enter Washington DC! I don't need to go into what we all know from reading ZH, but the post above is another confirmation of the giant lie that America is free and a capitalist free market nation. Washington and the bought off congress and the evil spy agencies, the evil fed, and that most evil of all, Neoconservative Warmongering Military Industrial Complex. These folks have taken away everything we hoped for as Americans, and have replaced it with pure evil. The manipulated markets, total manipulation that favor a tiny elite class who own congress and the banks. They run a Government / Banker empire of greed, that fucks us all. It is sad to see Washington destory what people stuggled 200 years to make. Once the US went to Vietnam when I was a little kid, it has been all downhill from there.
The United States was founded on theft, deception and murder. Nothing has changed.
Yes, but we had hoped for a potential inprovement once pioneer days crimes were over. We did not get that improvement it seems.
Welcome to flight reality check
Stow your emotional baggage in the overhead compartment or under your seat
Keep your self-defense weapons in the locked and loaded position
Please stay mentally buckled in for your safety throughout the remainder of the flight
It's going to be a bumpy ride as our Satanic Captain and his co-pilot Lucifer take us on a one way trip from Shangri-la to Oblivion. Our estimated time of arrival is infinite
From the rest of the awakened crew enjoy the remainder of the flight and thank you for joining us here on Fight for Freedom Airways
Flying Sheep - http://youtu.be/Vkw2DdoskPY
Our slavery has been slow and incremental, most have not noticed, regrettably for the majority it has been voluntary.
It's been recognized for a long time: the love of money is the root of all evil.
http://olduvai.ca
The system appears increasingly unsustainable. It will blow-up, the only question is whether it will blow up in a direction favorable to the Goldman Sachs, TBTF cadre. If this tree falls in an unfavorable direction for them, a few might end up inspecting the gibbet at very close range.
the new york post published this story. this chick may have protected herself by going public in a very ostentatious way, but the editor at the nypost that decided to run with this story is a dead man.
how do you think so many stories and 'muckraking' slowly dissolve in the background and you never hear all that much about them?
after the bribes, and blackmailing people with their secrets stops working-------
murder for hire is the next step. suicide , poison, and NAILGUNS.
"...suicide , poison, and NAILGUNS...RUNAWAY MERCEDES."
Lewis' tone on this exposé comes off as one of surprise and astonishment, yet much of what was revealed today is/was already de facto known to many, including the public. (Goldman was bailed out in plain sight by the government and NY Fed in 2008 to the tune of billions, and we know all the players, on either side.)
Lewis and others treat this issue, along with that of the age-old front running clients by brokers, as sensational, but these have become the de rigueur of every day life for all. When are we as a society going to decide corruption between government and the private sector is unacceptable and has to end, and then end it? Government as a regulator is also a fatal failure, at the expense of a free market and its value to regulate.
This should be the biggest news and the spark of the first real changes in decades (if not longer). But it won't be. It'll get buried by distractions... Cue the false flag in 3, 2, 1...
All of you regulars here at ZH know the deal....all the Federal "agencies" are captured by the industries they're charged with controlling. These bloated bureaucrats would lose all their under the table money, hookers & blow if they ratted on the companies, and the beat goes on. And in the Obummer admin whistleblowers are dead meat. I wish this Woman the best, but I sure wouldn't want to be her. These days, it's real easy to be "suicided".
cool!
From near the end of the podcast:
“We don’t know if the culture at the NY Fed is improving, and, because it’s such a secretive place, we probably won’t know unless,
A. Someone comes out with more secret recordings, or
B. Congress forces them to answer some questions, or
C. There’s another financial crisis.”
I’m all-in betting on C.
i am all for this, certainly. just curious though, what do we know about Segarra? Is she a true free marketeer? Like, hopefully in the Austrian school way? Or is she a far left operative who will use this evidence in an ill fated manner to further the lie that this is somehow why capitalism is bad? When obviously for those who are educated we know it is only government cronyism. Anyways, I just want to hope soooo bad that she is somehow a true libertarian and lover of true free markets and true capitalism.
I would not let perfection be the enemy of the good.
She worked at the Fed. I'm pretty sure her shit stinks, too - so what?
Did she get the goods on some bad guys that can be used to help destabilize the dysfunctional system that's been hammering at our freedom and our future? Looks that way to me.
This American Life is just another public propaganda machine, but this particular program may be put to good use.
dont know what you guys are upset about.
its a fact that employees always do what the boss tells them to do.
"Guillotine the Fed! Start at Goldman!"
An American, not US subject.
US institutions are all corrupt to their core. Expect more, and more, of the same, until the collapse.
I'd love to see the mass executions, but only if I could be assured they wouldn't be conducted in a humane, civilized fashion.
Think "Mussolini".
We're already doing that to...oh wait, you're talking about the bankers. Nevermind.
"When you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing; when you see that money is flowing to those who deal not in goods, but in favors; when you see that men get rich more easily by graft than by work, and your laws no longer protect you against them, but protect them against you. . . you may know that your society is doomed."
Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand
I believe that Goldman is one of the owners of the Fed... as are many of the other international banks.
It is ludicrous to think that the Fed can regulate its owners.
Another reason that we do not need the Fed.
In other news, water has been determined to be wet.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Precisely...
Spot on.
It would be interesting to see some of the FED regulator's resumes.
I bet a high percentage of them worked for Shearman and Sterling at some point in their careers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shearman_%26_Sterling
Shearman & Sterling was founded in 1873 by Thomas Shearman and John William Sterling, who concentrated on litigation and transactional matters respectively. The young firm represented financier Jay Gould and industrialist Henry Ford, and cultivated a number of important business ties that would evolve into long-standing client relationships, such as with the Rockefeller family and the predecessor banks to Citigroup and Deutsche Bank.
...
In postwar Germany, Shearman & Sterling helped German companies such as Siemens and BASF restructure their debts and re-emerge as credible exporters to the United States. The firm's lawyers assisted Daimler in its listing on the New York Stock Exchange in 1993, the first such listing by a German company, prompting other major companies to follow suit.[4] The firm then represented the German automaker in its purchase and subsequent sale of Chrysler.
The firm is well known for its ability to compete in key legal markets, particularly in Germany where its mergers and acquisitions practice is preeminent and in the United Kingdom, where it fields one of the largest London offices of a non-UK law firm.[5]
Elsewhere, the firm played an important role in the establishment of state-owned oil and gas companies, including Sonatrach in Algeria and throughout the Middle East. In 1979, Shearman & Sterling lawyers represented Citibank during the intense negotiations that ensued during the Iranian Hostage Crisis, after the US government froze all Iranian assets in US banks.
Shearman & Sterling has been involved in Latin America for decades. The firm's lawyers helped restructure the debts of many Latin American nations in the 1980s in the Brady transactions. It also won mandates in the privatization of numerous state-owned entities. In 2004, the firm launched an office in São Paulo, Brazil and has since represented Brazilian companies in a number of important transactions.
...
Recent notable mandates
Europe- Advised on the $605 million sale by ArcelorMittal of Skyline Steel and Astralloy Business to Nucor Corporation; the firm also achieved a significant litigation victory in favor of ArcelorMittal Stainless Belgium N.V
- Ongoing representation of shareholders of Yukos Oil Company in arbitration proceedings against the Russian Federation stemming from the bankruptcy and subsequent nationalization of the Yukos company. The compensation sought by the claimants exceeds $33 billion.[14]
- Represented Société Générale in its €4.8 billion equity offering, the proceeds of which were used to repay the French state for its support during the financial crisis.[15]
- US, Italian and German law counsel to UniCredit in its €4 billion rights issue in January 2010.[16]
Middle East and Africa...
To tie into 2 things slightly off on a tangent.
http://pension360.org/wall-street-securitizes-pension-liabilities-to-cre...
Several firms are selling securities backed by longevity risk—the risk that retirees receiving benefits will live longer than expected and thus incur a higher cost on their retirement plan. More from Institutional Investor:
Sovereign wealth funds, educational endowments and ultrahigh-net-worth individuals are the target investors for longevity derivatives, which package the risk that retirees drawing annuities will outlive actuarial expectations.
The roots of this nascent market date back to 2006, when small monoline insurance companies such as U.K.-based Lucida (purchased by Legal & General in June 2013) and Paternoster (bought by Goldman Sachs Group in 2011) began taking longevity risk off European pension funds through bulk annuity buyouts.
....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_wealth_fund
...
Nature and purposeSWFs are typically created when governments have budgetary surpluses and have little or no international debt. This excess liquidity is not always possible or desirable to hold as money or to channel into immediate consumption. This is especially the case when a nation depends on raw material exports like oil, copper or diamonds. In such countries, the main reason for creating a SWF is because of the properties of resource revenue: high volatility of resource prices, unpredictability of extraction, and exhaustibility of resources.
There are two types of funds: saving funds and stabilization funds. Stabilization SWFs are created to reduce the volatility of government revenues, to counter the boom-bust cycles' adverse effect on government spending and the national economy. Savings SWFs build up savings for future generations. One such fund is the Government Pension Fund of Norway. It is believed that SWFs in resource-rich countries can help avoid resource curse, but the literature on this question is controversial. Governments may be able to spend the money immediately, but risk causing the economy to overheat, e.g., in Hugo Chávez's Venezuela or Shah-era Iran. In such circumstances, saving the money to spend during a period of low inflation is often desirable.
Other reasons for creating SWFs may be economical, or strategic, such as war chests for uncertain times. For example, the Kuwait Investment Authority during the Gulf War managed excess reserves above the level needed for currency reserves (although many central banks do that now). The Government of Singapore Investment Corporation and Temasek Holdings are partially the expression of a desire to bolster Singapore's standing as an international financial centre. The Korea Investment Corporation has since been similarly managed.
...
Concerns about SWFsThere are reasons why the growth of sovereign wealth funds is attracting close attention.
The governments of SWF's commit to follow certain rules:
...
Size of SWFsAssets under management of SWFs increased for the fifth year running in 2013 to a record $5.78 trillion.[9] There was an additional $7.2 trillion held in other sovereign investment vehicles, such as pension reserve funds, development funds and state-owned corporations' funds and $8.1 trillion in other official foreign exchange reserves. Taken together, governments of SWFs, largely those in emerging economies, have access to a pool of funds totalling $20 trillion. Some of these funds could in future be channelled towards funding development of infrastructure for which there is global demand.
Countries with SWFs funded by commodities' exports, primarily oil and gas exports, totalled $3.5 trillion as of the end of 2013.[10] Non-commodity SWFs totalled $2.1 trillion. Non-commodity SWFs are typically funded by transfer of assets from official foreign exchange reserves, and in some cases from government budget surpluses and privatisation revenue. Asian countries account for the bulk of such funds.
An important point to note is the SWF-to-Foreign Reserve Exchange Ratio, which shows the proportion a government has invested in investments relative to currency reserves.
...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_sovereign_wealth_funds
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_foreign-exchange_rese...
"It turned out that Goldman had no conflict of interest policy..."
Actually they do. Anything that conflicts with their own interests is bad and should be ignored or elliminated. And anything that advances their own interests is good and should be pursued.
At the end of the day, it's still a zero sum game. Someon has to win and lose.
'Gotta be on the right side of the trade.' At all cost!
nothing to see here, move along
http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&...
It may not be against the law for the government to blow up the World Trade Center, but I'm sure it's against the law for a government employee to secretly tape meetings and disclose those tapes. She's a neat lady ... but I fear she's toast. Oh wait ... the Federal Reserve is not government is it!
" Oh wait ... the Federal Reserve is not government is it!"
Of course it is.
NO, that's just the losses. Profits are private.
Yes we know that Goldman is evil and like being evil. Yes we know that the Fed workers are pathetic. Yes we know that Eric Holder is both pathetic and evil encompassing the worst of both.
Eric can now scream, "You can't pin that rap on me, I just quit!"
In a totally unsurprising note, there isn't one mention - not one buried link or anything - on Fox News or Fox Business News websites about this story. How do they have "news" in their name(s) and not get sued for fraud? Even they can't just ignore this story, can they..? I mean, Iknow they suck but not even one mention? And we wonder why Americans are so uninformed....our "news" outlets don't even try to inform the sheep who watch them. I don't watch or visit their sites ever except in cases like this where i'm morbidly curious of their coverage but this one is Too Big To Be Ignored, no???
EDIT: Went to other MSM sites...
CNNMoney=buried link, posted right at 5PM - lame attempt to discredit Segarra in final paragraph
Rueters= buried link, posted right before 5PM
BBC= nothing
Bloomberg= nothing, NOTHING lol
MSNBC = can't even navigate that mess of a site but cannot find anything on it
ZH's wonder why Americans are sheep and/or have their heads in the sand...? This is why, the vast majority are glued to these networks on TV or go to their websites to get their news and right now, all they're reading/watching is about the Oklahoma food processing plant 'beheading' by some guy who just conveniently just converted to Islam. All this on a late afternoon on a Friday....ProPublica should have released this story on Monday morning.
Apathy is indeed the enemy. But who cares?
Of cousre not. 'This American Life' is a quality show and one of the podcast I regularly try to listen to each week. Good and varied content especially on stuff that never sees the light of day on regular media.
Fox Is covering it as part of AIG bailout trial
"And we wonder why Americans are so uninformed....our "news" outlets don't even try to inform the sheep who watch them."
If the MSM "news" outlets are designed to sheepify people with controlled content that is tribally directed to acheive that end why would they "try" to inform said sheep? That would be a conflict of tribal interest. For their part the sheeple shall remain willfully ignorant until the tribes appetite for wool widens to include mutton.
CNN & fellow trough lickers will call this conspiracy nonsense.
It is well documented conspiracy nonsense.
Oktberfest here..most of the idiots in my town will be too drunk to know how to walk this weekend.
Yikes.
Elizabeth Warren has called for hearings. It will give the politicians TV time to pontificate.
I wonder if the Fed and GS employees will take the 5th?
So she can "bury the hatchet?"
Or is she "on the warpath?"
I know she has her "warpaint" on.
"U.S. District Judge Ronnie Abrams" I.......see. Now if I were a cynical person I'd say that tribal connections might have played a role in his surprising decision. But I'm not and they did not. So there.
She's back from her trip to Tel-Aviv?
Oldest Known Jellyfish Fossils Found
Andrea Thompson | October 30, 2007
http://www.livescience.com/1971-oldest-jellyfish-fossils.html
.
that's what i'm talkin' about.
I wonder if anything short of frontier justice will work on these banker swine like Blankfein and Dimon. etc, etc, etc... and their criminal partners at the Fed and Holder's Race Crimes Bureau ??
This is very interesting because I remember making a "cartoon" about Goldmans's business model being one big conflict of interest.
If you have a current link please remind us ZH'ers.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/expd/6689157883/in/photostream/
http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2012-11-14/goldman-4-1-9
start here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/expd/sets/
http://williambanzai7.blogspot.com/2012/03/diagram-of-cronysphere.html
Dr. Banzai's Graphic Guide to the 21st Century.
This is possibly The One:
ZH 2012.09.25 WoRLD oF CoNSPiRaCY 2.0 (NeW AnD IMPRoVeD!)
Ex-Stasi Spy Chief Markus Wolf Hired By Homeland Security! http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/december2004/061204wolfhired.htm
General Yevgeni Primakov, has been hired as a consultant by the US Department of Homeland Security!
http://www.realnews247.com/KGB%20General%20Yevgeni%20Primakov%20hired%20...?
CIA Now Openly Flaunts Corruption https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Qsg_nM991w
I wonder why people even discuss these topics in the manner they do. Who do people think owns the federal reserve? GS, JPM, etc. That's the answer - the so-called regulators ARE the people they supposedly regulate. The phrase "conflict of interest" is too indirect for the conflict that actually exists.
This American Life program on how bankers caused the economic collapse is an all-time classic, well worth revisiting every once in a while:
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/355/the-giant-poo...
Just like BP and the regulators.
Endemic.
Well, Duh.
GS, JPM et al OWN the Fed.
As in THEY ARE THE ORIGINAL STOCK HOLDERS of the corporation.
Hanky Paulson took a demotion going from head of GS to head of the FED
Everytime you mention this to a relative, co-worker, wifey, they just stare at you as if you've gone crazy.
Very annoying!
Shared this story with family and friends and even with a tldr summary. As I have before with other important stories. Not that it will make any differnece.
I am getting to a point where it is all about mine and mine ... but ... I will be there for family, for the elderly, for a child. If i can.
Owning the cops is essential for elites to exist : it propagates the imbalance between money and wealth .
See http://andreswhy.blogspot.com/2014/09/drowning-in-gold.html
Q: If the Fed is controlled by the banks, how can it be objective in the decisions that it makes?
...
Q: If the congress is also controlled by the banks, how can they be objective in the decisions that they make?
....
Q: If the Israeli lobby also controls the congress through lobbying, how can we have an objective foreign policy in the Middle East?
....
We don't. Objective is as Blankfein says.
One critique about the article. Casting "the FED" as putative regulators of the banks AS IF there are regulators of the banks seems misleading. The owners of the privately held "Federal Reserve System" -- recall, as "federal" as "Federal Express -- ARE ostensibly "the banks", which in turn are owned by PEOPLE, likely some of the very same PEOPLE that own and operate such entities as Goldman itself. So, yes there is this charade. To anticipate the caption of a possibly forthcoming WB7 graphic, "WE DON'T NEED NO STINKIN' REGULATORS!" So, what else would we expect of, what else could we predict for these greedy, pathological, psychopathic creatures? I look forward to listening to the show!! Thanks for letting us know.
From the article: "Silva related how the top bankers in the nation were asked to contribute money to save Lehman. He described his disappointment when Goldman executives initially balked. Silva acknowledged that it might have been a hard sell to shareholders, but added that "if Goldman had stepped up with a big number, that would have encouraged the others."
"It was extraordinarily disappointing to me that they weren't thinking as Americans," Silva says in the recording. "Those two things are very powerful experiences that, I will admit, influence my thinking."
Perhaps Mr. Silva you wouldn't have been so shocked if you'd realized that "they" aren't Yanquis, but dualies, as in passports.
Didn't we just see a group of private sector people move into the govt positions??? Example, Gensler (cheese eating rat boy) at the CFTC. They stacked the deck from the inside to legalize and regulate the OTC illegal derivative scam. Guess the system is AC/DC.
Carmen Segarra, hero of 2014.
A legend is born!
Was it any surprise that Michael Silva was Geithner's Chief of Staff? I can't find a word to describe what I heard. 'toady?' 'Spineless?'
And the building is not on fire? amazing...
Lots of Jewish names here. Some good, some not so. Judge Ronnie Abrams appointed by that President who gives and keeps giving - Barrack Hussein Obama.
I think that I am one of about 20 people who listen to "This American Life" on NPR. Does anyone actually think anyone is going to pay attention to this? I mean really, even if the five TBTF banks dismissed the Congress that they own and the President that they own and the Supreme Court that they also own, would anyone wake up and think, damm, we're fucked. No. No one cares. If you have any brains, you will make plans to leave the US while you still can. The place is fucked.
Planning is a prequisite but if one sits on the plans they will not hatch and the farquing is the same. ACT!!!
can you say "bill black for attorney general?" at the top of your lungs! or at least in a tweet to al sharpton?
(not just goin' for laughs here.... support the notion by leaving this as the last word/post, and forewarding the notion to someone, anyone. hey- all those phone calLs bought us three days and one vote in 2008. i'm as serious here!!!! it's either bill black or tanks in the streets....you choose)
double edit- so far so good. last post is last post. i'm gonna go tel max keiser and tarpley and paul craig roberts and and and ....
who you gonna tell? NO JUSTICE NO PEACE. NO JUSTICE NO PEACE. I WANT MY FIRST BLACK AG !!!!!!!
Thank God for honorable people ... Truth with a capital T. Will Bloomberg pick this up?
Nothing here ... move on because:
The New York Fed said it “categorically rejects” Segarra’s allegations.
Do you remember this TV interview?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTE6nXyKSnQ
And this...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LM2iVXAA770
From the mp3: Big men saying "...poke at it with our usual poker faces..." Then listen to them grovel on their knees. Must be hoping for their payoff via "the revolving door".
Well done, Ms. Segarra, Very nicely done.
US Federal Reserve Notes really are worthless paper from a worthless organization whose sole asset is fear - "backed by guns".
"no one was guilty as everything was done with concensus." that quote from above should be printed and sent to the people, DOJ SEC FED IRS congress white house , all can claim the same excuse, everything is agreed to in dark of night off the record meetings..the MSM is then set the task of making it seem otherwise.
to add to my comment below: Al Gore's "NO legal controlling authority"..what both quotes point out is how the elite avoid personal responsiblity, they see no legal controlling authority to regulate them or the get out of jail card everything done was done with consent of all :regulators, .gov depts, elected leadership, big corps, and the wealthy.
the constitution was overthrown discarded and reinterpreted as needed and is now defunct.
I wish someone would steal that bronze Wall Street Bull and recast it into a giant statue of Carmen Segarra. I’d love to see those Wall Street f$%ks wake up to that one morning, as a reminder of what real bravery, courage, and strength looks like.
Dear Carmen Segarra, Welcome to the Gold Team. As more good people get kicked off the "Debt as Money Team", the weaker they get and the stronger we get. Take a look at:
http://neilkeenan.com/sample-page/
This site has one purpose – to expose misanthropic globalists and strategize their demise.
Do you want to help?
she'll wind up suicided
Wut?
I thought magnetic trees was an act of gawd.
Consider this more proof that authorities are acting primarily to prop up governments as well as the economy by saving the financial system. It is important to remember these authorities are politicians and bureaucrats that want increased power and influence, and guess what, they may have hit the jackpot. Those in power have joined with the banks to create the "Financial-Political Complex" that promotes the current financial policy and supports banks that are "to big to fail".
Many people say that the way out of the housing crisis is to let everyone fix their mortgage debt at super low fixed rates, then inflate, inflate, inflate? Well perhaps the government's way out of its own debt is to secure low fixed rates for itself then inflate away when it becomes necessary. It should not bring comfort to the average man that these to unholy forces have joined together in such a union. More on this subject in the article below.
http://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-financial-political-complex.h...
I share the disgust of many Americans to hear confirmed Federal Reserve regulators were in bed with the enemy or at best asleep at the wheel. While pondering the ruckus being made over revelations and tapes that Fed regulators were to darn cozy with Goldman Sachs
I found myself wondering if Janet Yellen might be forced to resign. I concede it may be rather early to start asking this but if a full scale scandal does develop over these revelations she has a problem. More on the logic of this possible scenario in the article below.
http://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2014/09/yellen-could-be-forced-to-resign....
Goldman also controls Barrick Gold with a baby squid as CEO
Guess they control it all. Let em have it . Try to find honest ways to make money.
Snowden and Segarra IT IS A START. Fess up Bart Chilton
Goldman Sachs BANS traders from buying stocks for themselves after fired New York Fed worker exposed 'shady' deals and cosy relationship between regulators and bankers
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2771630/Goldman-Sachs-BANS-traders-buying-stocks.html
So, after six years of Congressional criticism and multimillion dollar fines by the SEC, it took this case for Goldman to finally ban its managers from insider trading.
Brilliant.
"Goldman Sachs BANS traders "
It doesn't say managers or other high level scum. Just low level traders, which still probably make ten times what I do.
Never, ever forget Squirrel Cop!
No need to worry goldman or fed...The american people dont care and this will blow over soon.
In other nooz...
Carmen Segarra is now the proud winner of a new nailgun!
Please...The FED only has the banknote monopoly since 1913.
It's the 5700 or so commerical banks in the USA that all inflate their balance sheets when they create loans of created out of thin air credit.
The entire history of the USA was financed by credit creation up to now.
Since 1944 and implementation of the bretton woods global master system...The greatest bubble in history was inflated up by the population of the USA...since the USA was set up as the supply of the global trade medioum of exchange...The credit instrument known as the US Dollar and the rest of the world the demand for the US credit instrument...with all teh rest of teh credit instruments of the world fixed to the US credit instrument.
making the US credit instrument the one credit isntrument to rule them all.
In 2008 was teh real beginning of the end of the bretton woods global trade system...when the USA reached it's maximum potential to suppluy the demand of teh world...and now what exploded up out of thin air the past 6 decades is imploding back into thin air.
The FED is an effect of the system...not the cause of teh systsem.