Goldman Sachs Reports Big Earnings As It Faces A Big Lawsuit
Traders work in the Goldman Sachs booth on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. (AP)
Goldman Sachs reports that its first quarter earnings almost doubled to $3 billion. But the investment bank is facing a major lawsuit from the S.E.C., which accuses Goldman of working with a hedge fund manager to create bad debts for its investors and failing to tell them how they were created. We speak with Jesse Eisinger, senior reporter for ProPublica.org.
Democrats Seize Goldman Lawsuit To Push Through Financial Regulations
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Congressional Democrats are hoping the recent S.E.C. lawsuit against Goldman Sachs will give them ammunition as they move to pass sweeping financial regulations. Republicans have called on Democrats to throw out their bill and start from scratch on a bipartisan bill. But Democrats say their bill will prevent another financial meltdown, by changing the way investors buy and sell derivatives. Gail Chaddock of the Christian Science Monitor is our guest.
Top Secret iPhone Found: Blunder or Marketing Ploy?
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A familiar gadget was left behind at a bar in California last month. Although it looked like a run of the mill iPhone, it was eventually identified as Apple’s next iPhone, which is not on sale yet and supposedly top secret. So did someone from Apple accidentally forget it – or was it left behind to create some buzz? We might never know what happened, but Apple would not be the first company to try to create buzz about a product using what’s called “stealth marketing.” David Balter, C.E.O. and founder of BzzAgent, a word-of-mouth marketing firm based in Boston, is our guest.
Long Lost Lincoln Film Makes Its Premiere
A couple of years ago, when he was demolishing a barn in New Hampshire, a contractor found several reels of old film, including what appears to be only the copy of a silent movie about Abraham Lincoln. The film, “When Lincoln Paid,” was directed by and stars movie pioneer Francis Ford, brother of the great director, John Ford. We speak with author Tag Gallagher. “When Lincoln Paid” has been restored and will be screened at Keene State College in New Hampshire today.
Novel About 80’s Housing Bust Mirrors Today’s Meltdown
Cover image from "Model Home."
In Eric Puchner’s debut novel, “Model Home,” real estate developer Warren Ziller moves his family from Wisconsin to California in order to pursue the American dream. But when Warren’s model home development goes awry the family is forced to give up their residence in a gated community as well as many of their plans for the future.
Music From The Show
- Peter Dixon, “Nagog Woods”
- Joe Jackson, “Steppin’ Out”
- The Lickets, “Meat City”
- Tito Puente, “All Blues”
- Opening theme from the film score, “The Quiet Man”
- Don Felder, Don Henley and Glenn Frey, “Hotel California” performed by The Eagles
Hi:
Your show on the financial reform bill left out a key fact.
In President Obama’s first press conference, Proesident Obama responded to a question from a reporter about Amereicans overuse of credit with a statement referring to “bonds that paid 30 to 40 times the investment.” You can look this up. I can direct to papragraph near the endof the Press Conference, or you can print out a copy of it.
What no one is atatin is that for every dollar invested in Credit Default Swap Bonds, the Bond Hiolder was GUARENTEED a payout of between 30 ans 40 tiems if the sub-prime mortages “backing” these bonds went bad. I put quotes around “backing”, because everyone who bought them KNEW that the mortages were going to go bad. They had paid out millions of dollars to mortage originators to created these insured and guarenteed bonds. As President Clinton’s remarks over this weekdn, he made it clrear. “1% of the Americans(th richest) created insturments which would impact on %100 of th population.
See; Jant Morrisay, Time Magazine for March 2008.
I have a blog at Progressive Liberal Truths on blogspot.
The address is progresiveliberaltruths.bnlogspot.com. Sometimes that takes y0u there, abnd somnetimes y0u have ro break the words up.
The bottomline is that for every $100,000 subprime mortgage that goes bad today, a Credi Default Swap Bond holdermakes between $ 4,000,000 and $ 30,000,000. In Moriiseyss’ articel in Time, she predicted that 45 Trillion would transfer to the super rich. Experts today predict that th amount will be over 75 Trillion. The only way to ereally sove this problem is to have President Obama declare a claw back of all the Yield Spread Premiums(YSP) paid to mortgage makers, and clawback the payments based on Credit Default Swap Bonds. Without that, a million wealth Americans and American c]orprattions will control more moeny than has ever been held by the ricvh oin the history of the world.
Call me; 401-351-0373
Posted by Marc W Kohler, on April 20th, 2010 at 1:10 pmInterview me, and I will convince you that this CDSB scam was put in place by Gramm’s Bank bills in 1998-2000. Cluinton thought it would help poor people, and insead, it has made EVERY American poorer. The poor neighboods are going to blow just like thy did in the sixties. Maybe, I should mail or email you my Essay A A White Guy’s Primer on Racism in America.
It amazes me that one the Republicans and the public can get the regulations intentions so 180 degrees out of context. But what further amazes me is that the Obama Administration and the Bill’s authors did not foresee the Republicans ‘predicted’ behavior and name the fund the FIIC (Federal Investors Insurance Corporation) modeled after the successful FDIC. That would’ve been so much harder for the Republicans to produce misinformation about.
BTW, people who keep trying to blame this all on Clinton need to read, “A Short History of Financial Deregulation in the United States,” found at URL: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=7&ved=0CCQQFjAG&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.openthegovernment.org%2Fotg%2Fdereg-timeline-2009-07.pdf&ei=t_XNS4H9OYG6tQO5_MSBDA&usg=AFQjCNE2ROpcEuWZVJ-c-NuJaRkQdYMlcg&sig2=vQ654gko0Ax2W43-eWgtuQ
It shows a 30 year effort from Marquette vs First of Omaha in 1978 to Gramm-Leach in in 1998 to the SEC’s proposed voluntary regulation in 2003 to give into greed and Laissez Faire policies have gone on. And our current hero Senator Gramm was right in the thick of the greed stripping of regulatory controls during that time.
We learn from our mistakes but our memories are short.
Posted by EricM, on April 20th, 2010 at 2:51 pm