Robin Hood in reverse: looting the fed
Hopefully the story in Sunday’s Seattle Times about Goldman Sachs was just the start of more press coverage about the outrageous theft that has occurred from the American people into the coffers of the huge financial institutions [“Goldman Sachs builds on benefits,” Business, Jan 3].
My only criticism of your article is that it was not strong enough. Goldman Sachs would likely not exist today if it were not for the transfer of billions of dollars of taxpayer money into private hands.
This started with the AIG bailout in 2008 and continues today with the federal government dramatically overpaying for more than $1.1 trillion dollars in mortgage securities. By overpaying for these securities, the fed is allowing the financial institutions to make billions in loan fees, permitting them to overstate assets on their books and funneling the firms an estimated $200 billion under this mortgage purchase program so far. As a result, a share of Goldman Sachs stock that was trading below $50 about a year ago is now above $160 a share.
Your article should have made the point that instead of merely keeping the financial institutions from going out of business, we gave these institutions many billions more than what was needed for survival. The Goldman Sachs and JP Morgans have not just survived but have flourished, raking in billions of dollars of undeserved profits, putting them now back into bonus payout mode less than a year after facing possible insolvency.
2009 should go down as the year Wall Street looted Main Street. Call it Robin Hood in reverse. Good investigative reporters need to expose the real truth behind the bailouts, the real cost to taxpayers, and the actual cash infused into each of the for-profit institutions. Goldman Sachs is just the tip of the iceberg.
U.S. citizens should become outraged about this wealth transfer and insist that Congress conduct a thorough investigation and make public the accounting at the fed. My hope is that 2010 becomes the year that Main Street takes control back from Wall Street.
— Joe Curiel, Vashon