Top Ten Reasons: NOT to Trust Wall Street

( – promoted by buhdydharma )

Wall Street is sick. And its illness is Unchecked Greed. … The bug is call OPM.

Their fever has risen so dangerously high, that the Wizards of Wall Street, the Captains of Industry, for the most part see your assets as their “playing chips”.

Your Money, is their Bread and Butter.

Exploiting and Levering OPM (Other People’s Money) is the key to their  Extreme Wealth.

This contagion on Wall Street has reached such a point, that one of those “Captains of Industry” has been speaking out against it.  He has been working to “right the ship” of speculative, reckless investing, using our OPM, as the collateral.

Jack C. Bogle, founder and CEO of the Vanguard Group, is one of those “old school” investors — you know, that we should be “investing in a better future“, NOT just a “better bank account“.

Jack has listed the symptoms of this wide spread illness — NOW if only we could find some “Doctors” wise enough to quarantine the Damage …

The Damage unregulated greed has done … before they try to “go for broke” AGAIN …

 

Goldman’s secret moral pathology

15 symptoms of a Wall Street disease destroying democracy and capitalism

By Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch – Nov 24, 2009

MarketWatch — In “The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism” Jack Bogle no longer sees Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” driving “capitalism in a healthy, positive direction.”

Today, his “Happy Conspiracy” of Wall Street plus co-conspirators in Washington and Corporate America are spreading a contagious “pathological mutation of capitalism” driven by the new “invisible hands” of this new “mutant capitalism”

[…] Wall Street’s secret contagious pathology, with insiders like Lloyd Blankfein, Henry Paulson and others pocketing billions more of the firm’s profits than shareholders, evidence the new “mutant capitalism” has replaced Adam Smith’s 1776 version which historically endowed the soul of American democracy as well as our capitalistic system.

[…]

Today we’ll paraphrase news reports about 15 symptoms spreading “soul sickness” beyond the boundaries of this Goldman case study: These are the 15 signs of a moral pathology undermining not just banking but American democracy and capitalism.

1. Gross denial of any moral damage caused by their rampant greed

2. Narcissistic egomaniacs with secret ‘God complexes’

3. Paranoid obsessives about secrecy, guilt and non-disclosure

4. Power-hungry need to control government using Trojan Horses

5. Borderline personalities who regularly ignore conflicts of interest

6. Pathological liars incapable of honesty even with own investors

7. Sole fiduciary duty to insiders, not investors, never the public

8. Moral issues are PR glitches, violations of ‘don’t get caught’ rule

9. Charitable donations are tax and PR opportunities, not moral issues

10. When exposed in a massive fraud, feign humility, fake an apology

…

for the last 5 signs of the Mutant Capitalism

SO, what ever happened to Adam Smith’s “Invisible Hand”, in this modern era of Super-charged Capitalism?  Where was that “Invisible Hand” to clear the market of all those Toxic CDO’s and CDS’s and the Underwater Mortgages?  

Funny, how the “Invisible Hand” that had to step up and fill the “Demand-side of that Equation” was you and me — the Tax Payers.  We had to underwrite all those “paper-thin” speculative “investments”, (aka Credit Default Swaps, and OTC Derivatives)

Those sub-prime Mortgages, were “hot potatoes” that Wall Street could not drop, soon enough.

If recent Wall Street events are any guide, Jack Bogle is right, Capitalism’s “Invisible Hand” has “mutated” into a force, never quite intended, by its founding author, Adam Smith.  

The fly in the ointment:

That “Invisible Hand” behind the all “Free” markets, which is supposedly always “working for the greater good”, may ACTUALLY short circuit that “greater good”, when the Money Managers see the “insane profits” they PERSONALLY can make, by just “cutting a few corners”.  Unfortunately not all such greed-ravaged souls, are as clumsy, or blatant about it, as the Bernie Madoff’s of the world.  But rest assured, they are “getting theirs”. (Using your OPM.)

With so little consequences for bad behavior, “Greed will always find a way”.

For example, has anyone from Wall Street’s CDO-Mortgage Rating Agencies, been investigated yet?  It was their “AAA” Stamp of Approval, that enabled the “masters of the universe” to devalue your home, and pawn it off, on unsuspecting Pension Funds, Municipal Funds, and untold Foreign Investors.

Perhaps the “Invisible Hand” of Civil Court will see justice done for those enablers of Grand Thief — Moody’s Investor Services, Standard & Poor’s, and Fitch.  But will that actually deal with the Root Cause?  Will that prevent the Next Bubble with your Money, from bursting? Will the Court’s decision, even see the light of day?

Yes that, was on “someone else’s watch” — but guess what — the sickness is still there.  And the Vaccine shots are few and far between. The Medics seem pre-occupied on getting the Big Bankers, bank-rolled, and back into the Game.

The with such minuscule Marginal Tax rates on that Top 1 Percent, to hold them “in check”, that contagion of greed no doubt, will survive, and continue to thrive, even under the “new ship of state” — afterall most of the original players, is still there to grease the wheels of the OPM Game.

Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer

Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.

Officer since January 2004

Lloyd Blankfein Total Compensation 2008    $1,113,771.00

Forbes.com

Lloyd Blankfein, Billionaire Goldman CEO — he’s obvious Too-Big-to-Fail!

Fiscal 1998 Compensation Information

Henry M. Paulson, Jr.,    $12,700,000

  1998: Co-Chairman and Co-Chief Executive Officer

  (1999: Director, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer)

Poor Henry! — HOW in the world — will he keep up with his peers?

No worries, you see Henry, started off, with a “silver spoon” in his pocket …

The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.

Common Stock

This is an initial public offering of shares of common stock of The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. This prospectus relates to an offering of 55,200,000 shares in the United States and Canada.

   Per Share,    Total

Initial public offering price   $53.00    $3,657,000,000

Prospectus dated May 3, 1999.

http://www2.goldmansachs.com/s…

Shares Beneficially Owned

Prior to [Goldman’s Common Stock] Offerings —

Directors and named executive officers:    

   Number,    Percent      

Henry M. Paulson, Jr.   4,132,235    1.1%

http://www2.goldmansachs.com/s…

4,132,235 shares x $53.00 offer price =    $219,008,455.00

Henry Paulson: 1999 Goldman Director, and Instant Billionaire, since 1998 — AND primary Architect of the unprecedented Wall Street Bailout giveaway, with Goldman Sachs the prime benefactor.

Learn more about Jack Jack Bogle’s call to restore sanity and health, to our Capitalism System, including the Bill Moyers interview:

The Invisible Hand: Too Big to Fail, vs Too Small to Notice

by jamess –Thu Nov 26, 2009

Knowledge is the first step, to reclaiming your OPM —

Responsive Government, is the second.

Someday, we’ll have, both.