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pahunkboy -> Financial Crisis Commission Turns Up Heat On Goldman Sachs: 'Nobody Here Believes You' (7/1/2010 9:10:28 PM)
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Financial Crisis Commission Turns Up Heat On Goldman Sachs: 'Nobody Here Believes You'
he panel created to investigate the roots of the financial crisis escalated the government's assault on Goldman Sachs on Thursday, criticizing the Wall Street firm for failing to turn over basic documents and accusing it nearly lying under oath.
. "We generally do not have a derivatives business," David Viniar, Goldman's chief financial officer, told the panel Thursday under oath. Goldman Sachs holds more than $49 trillion in notional derivatives contracts, making it the third-largest derivatives dealer among U.S. banks, according to first quarter figures from national bank regulator the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. The commission has found that Goldman is a party to more than 1 million different derivatives contracts, Commissioner Brooksley Born disclosed Thursday.
We don't separate out derivatives and cash businesses," Viniar clarified under questioning. The derivatives units are "integrated" into the firm's cash businesses, making it difficult for the firm to isolate its derivatives data, he said. In January, the panel asked Goldman chairman and chief executive Lloyd C. Blankfein for a breakdown of the firm's revenues and profits from its derivatives activities.
He said the firm would comply. The commission reiterated that request Wednesday and Thursday. Viniar said the firm doesn't "keep" records outlining its revenues from its derivatives dealing. "I am very skeptical that you can't measure these revenues and profits," Born told Viniar. "I urge you to provide us with this information.
It's been about six months we've been asking for it... and it makes one wonder also why Goldman has the incentive or impetus not to reveal this information. "You're suggesting you don't give it to your regulators. You don't put it in your financial reports... so you don't give it to the market... [or to your counterparties]," Born continued.
"And you're refusing to give it to us. I hope very much that we will see this very shortly." Viniar took exception to that last comment. "Commissioner, again, we're not refusing anything," Goldman's chief financial officer said. "We don't have a separate derivatives business." Viniar then said that Goldman isn't alone in not breaking out its derivatives-specific revenues and profits.
Born quickly shot back. "They don't," Born, the nation's former top derivatives regulator, conceded. "But some other firms have provided us with that data when we've asked for it, and Goldman Sachs hasn't." Phil Angelides, the panel's chairman, could barely contain his incredulousness. "Are you telling me you have no system at your company that tracks revenues or assets of contracts, and liabilities and payments under contracts?" Angelides asked. "You have no management reports, no financial reports that track these contracts?"/snip
Of course Goldman Sachs is one of the owners of the Federal Reserve. so consider how messed up THOSE books are. All - very funny while your job-house and retirement ride on these bozos.
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