Here (via Wonkette) is Senator Carl Levin grilling Goldman Sachs about a “shitty business deal.”
Despite the fact that it is satisfying to hear a Senator repeatedly say the word “shitty,” these Goldman Sachs hearings have been disappointing. Slog tipper Raphael sent along an e-mail this morning that read:
I was just watching the Goldman hearings and they were uncannily similar to Julian Barnes’ The Porcupine. It’s a novel about a post-communist country trying to convict its former dictator and getting no traction because it has to play by the rules.
It hadn’t occurred to me—it’s been years since I read The Porcupine, in the middle of a huge Julian Barnes phase—but that’s a really good call, Raphael. Barnes basically wrote these hearings 17 years ago.
Come now, folks, you didn’t really expect these hearings to actually amount to anything, did you? If there was any danger of Goldman Sachs being held accountable these hearings wouldn’t be happening at all.
It might help if the government officials holding the hearing weren’t old white Grandparents. Maybe… lawyers, economists or financial regulators who actually know what they’re talking about and can articulate it, without long pauses as they search through pages trying to come up with a gotcha moment that they don’t really understand.
Paging Alan Grayson!
at least they didn’t grant those giving testimony immunity …
right?
These hearings may be more light than fire, and the SEC may never claw back a dime with their civil suit, but this is a brilliant double play.
After eight years of the Bush administration full-contact with no pads football, team Obama is mustering a genius chess game.
Consider the timing of the SEC case–it put the Republican’s balls in a vice and emasculated any chance of stonewalling this out for their friends on the Street.
And Goldman? They’re going to hurt from this for years and years, even if they are never convicted. The only difference between GS and the rest of the industry was it’s gold plated reputation for “putting the client first”. That has now been destroyed, in public, on television, in front of Congress. While I’d love to see a perp walk or two, this is going to hurt like a bitch when their “sophisticated, institutional” investors clearly see where GS’s loyalties really lie. Outstanding!
Herding porcupines can actually be done quite easily. You just need a shovel, a milk crate, a towel, and some gloves.
I’m not really buying this notion that the investment bankers expertly skirted criminality at all times. Prosecutors and judges have a lot of leeway in how they interpret the law, and under the circumstances, I would expect any jury to be sympathetic to the prosecution’s case.
The only way to be reasonably sure that your actions don’t fit some court’s definition of criminal behavior is to stay well back from the line at all times. People (and organizations) that treat that line like a tightrope always wind up in court sooner or later.