Here's a question for you

First, the set-up about Goldman Sachs' potential violations of securities laws via McClatchy:

WASHINGTON — In 2006 and 2007, Goldman Sachs Group peddled more than $40 billion in securities backed by at least 200,000 risky home mortgages, but never told the buyers it was secretly betting that a sharp drop in U.S. housing prices would send the value of those securities plummeting.

Goldman's sales and its clandestine wagers, completed at the brink of the housing market meltdown, enabled the nation's premier investment bank to pass most of its potential losses to others before a flood of mortgage defaults staggered the U.S. and global economies.

Only later did investors discover that what Goldman had promoted as triple-A rated investments were closer to junk.

Now, pension funds, insurance companies, labor unions and foreign financial institutions that bought those dicey mortgage securities are facing large losses, and a five-month McClatchy investigation has found that Goldman's failure to disclose that it made secret, exotic bets on an imminent housing crash may have violated securities laws.

The details are fascinating, and you should read them.

But here's the question:

Since Goldman Sachs is now effectively the US Treasury Department, will it have to waive sovereign immunity for the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate and, if necessary, prosecute the corporation?

Just asking.

Comments

Nancy Willing said…

Good question. Although Treasury has been GS for a long, long time.

November 1, 2009 at 1:26 PM

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