SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
Crime Can Pay if It's Big Enough
For banksters like Goldman Sachs, federal criminal settlements are just a cost of doing business.
Apr 27, 2016
Wow, $5 billion.
That's the stunning amount Goldman Sachs has agreed to pay to settle federal criminal charges over its shameful financial scams, which helped wreck America's economy in 2008. That's a lot of gold, even for Goldman.
Yet the Wall Street powerhouse says it's "pleased" to swallow this sour slug of medicine. Is that because its executives are contrite? Oh, come on -- banksters don't do contrite.
Rather, they're pleased with the settlement. Thanks to backroom dealing with friendly prosecutors, it's riddled with loopholes that may eliminate nearly $2 billion from the publicized punishment.
For example, the deal calls for the felonious bank to put a quarter-billion dollars into an affordable housing program. But generous federal negotiators put incentives and credits in the fine print that will let Goldman escape with paying out less than a third of that.
Also, about $2.5 billion of the settlement is to be paid to consumers hurt by the financial crisis. Yet the deal lets the bank deduct almost $1 billion of this payout from its corporate tax. That means you and I will subsidize Goldman's payment.
As a bank reform advocate told The New York Times, the problem with these settlements "is that they are carefully crafted more to conceal than to reveal to the American public what really happened here."
One more reason Wall Street bankers privately wink and grin at these seemingly huge punishments is that even paying the full $5 billion would be perfectly manageable. To you and me, it sounds like a crushing sum -- but Goldman Sachs raked in over $33 billion in revenue last year alone. For them, it's a reasonable cost of doing business.
After all, Goldman sold tens of billions of dollars' worth of fraudulent investment packages leading to the settlement. The bottom line is that crime can pay, if it's big enough.
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
This column was distributed by OtherWords.
Jim Hightower
Jim Hightower is a national radio commentator, writer, public speaker, and author of the books "Swim Against The Current: Even A Dead Fish Can Go With The Flow" (2008) and "There's Nothing in the Middle of the Road But Yellow Stripes and Dead Armadillos: A Work of Political Subversion" (1998). Hightower has spent three decades battling the Powers That Be on behalf of the Powers That Ought To Be - consumers, working families, environmentalists, small businesses, and just-plain-folks.
Wow, $5 billion.
That's the stunning amount Goldman Sachs has agreed to pay to settle federal criminal charges over its shameful financial scams, which helped wreck America's economy in 2008. That's a lot of gold, even for Goldman.
Yet the Wall Street powerhouse says it's "pleased" to swallow this sour slug of medicine. Is that because its executives are contrite? Oh, come on -- banksters don't do contrite.
Rather, they're pleased with the settlement. Thanks to backroom dealing with friendly prosecutors, it's riddled with loopholes that may eliminate nearly $2 billion from the publicized punishment.
For example, the deal calls for the felonious bank to put a quarter-billion dollars into an affordable housing program. But generous federal negotiators put incentives and credits in the fine print that will let Goldman escape with paying out less than a third of that.
Also, about $2.5 billion of the settlement is to be paid to consumers hurt by the financial crisis. Yet the deal lets the bank deduct almost $1 billion of this payout from its corporate tax. That means you and I will subsidize Goldman's payment.
As a bank reform advocate told The New York Times, the problem with these settlements "is that they are carefully crafted more to conceal than to reveal to the American public what really happened here."
One more reason Wall Street bankers privately wink and grin at these seemingly huge punishments is that even paying the full $5 billion would be perfectly manageable. To you and me, it sounds like a crushing sum -- but Goldman Sachs raked in over $33 billion in revenue last year alone. For them, it's a reasonable cost of doing business.
After all, Goldman sold tens of billions of dollars' worth of fraudulent investment packages leading to the settlement. The bottom line is that crime can pay, if it's big enough.
Jim Hightower
Jim Hightower is a national radio commentator, writer, public speaker, and author of the books "Swim Against The Current: Even A Dead Fish Can Go With The Flow" (2008) and "There's Nothing in the Middle of the Road But Yellow Stripes and Dead Armadillos: A Work of Political Subversion" (1998). Hightower has spent three decades battling the Powers That Be on behalf of the Powers That Ought To Be - consumers, working families, environmentalists, small businesses, and just-plain-folks.
Wow, $5 billion.
That's the stunning amount Goldman Sachs has agreed to pay to settle federal criminal charges over its shameful financial scams, which helped wreck America's economy in 2008. That's a lot of gold, even for Goldman.
Yet the Wall Street powerhouse says it's "pleased" to swallow this sour slug of medicine. Is that because its executives are contrite? Oh, come on -- banksters don't do contrite.
Rather, they're pleased with the settlement. Thanks to backroom dealing with friendly prosecutors, it's riddled with loopholes that may eliminate nearly $2 billion from the publicized punishment.
For example, the deal calls for the felonious bank to put a quarter-billion dollars into an affordable housing program. But generous federal negotiators put incentives and credits in the fine print that will let Goldman escape with paying out less than a third of that.
Also, about $2.5 billion of the settlement is to be paid to consumers hurt by the financial crisis. Yet the deal lets the bank deduct almost $1 billion of this payout from its corporate tax. That means you and I will subsidize Goldman's payment.
As a bank reform advocate told The New York Times, the problem with these settlements "is that they are carefully crafted more to conceal than to reveal to the American public what really happened here."
One more reason Wall Street bankers privately wink and grin at these seemingly huge punishments is that even paying the full $5 billion would be perfectly manageable. To you and me, it sounds like a crushing sum -- but Goldman Sachs raked in over $33 billion in revenue last year alone. For them, it's a reasonable cost of doing business.
After all, Goldman sold tens of billions of dollars' worth of fraudulent investment packages leading to the settlement. The bottom line is that crime can pay, if it's big enough.
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.