The Roman Republic fell, not because of the ambition of Caesar or Augustus, but because it had already long ceased to be in any real sense a republic at all. When the sturdy Roman plebeian, who lived by his own labor, who voted without reward according to his own convictions, and who with his fellows formed in war the terrible Roman legion, had been changed into an idle creature who craved nothing in life save the gratification of a thirst for vapid excitement, who was fed by the state, and directly or indirectly sold his vote to the highest bidder, then the end of the republic was at hand, and nothing could save it. The laws were the same as they had been, but the people behind the laws had changed, and so the laws counted for nothing.
–Teddy Roosevelt

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

WSJ: Goldman Traded $1.3 Billion in Libyan Funds

WSJ: Goldman Traded $1.3 Billion in Libyan Funds

"Goldman Sachs invested more than $1.3 billion from Libya's sovereign-wealth fund in currency bets and other trades in 2008 and the investment lost more than 98 percent of its value, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing internal Goldman documents.

When the fund, controlled by Col. Muammar Gaddafi, made huge losses Goldman offered Libya the chance to become one of its biggest shareholders, the Journal said, citing people familiar with the matter.

Goldman Sachs was not available for comment, outside of normal U.S. business hours.

Among the different proposals put forward by Goldman Sachs to recoup the losses was one in which Libya would get $5 billion in preferred Goldman shares in return for investing $3.7 billion into the securities firm, the paper added.

The documents also show that company Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein, its finance chief David Viniar and top executive Michael Sherwood were involved in discussions in this regard, the Journal reported.

The Libyan fund had apparently paid $1.3 billion for options on a basket of currencies and on six stocks — Citigroup Inc., Italian bank UniCredit SpA, Spanish bank Banco Santander, German insurance giant Allianz, French energy company Électricité de France and Italian energy company Eni SpA, the report said.
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1 comments:

  1. You will LOVE this one :)

    Public Unions Vs. The Unorganized Taxpayers: There Will Be Blood
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CxP5clZf_g

    11minutes of exposing the fraud and proving that the less of them there are, the better the economy does.

    Juliet

    ReplyDelete

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