The truth about crony capitalism, at the highest level, is being laid bare right before our eyes.
I'm talking here about Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS) as the husband of global investment banking prowess with the U.S. government as its mistress puppet.
Maybe there is hope that the Goldman Government can be brought down.
Okay, I was pushing it there. That's not going to happen in this century.
But here's what is happening...
A Little Light Shines In
The public is finally getting a look inside the black box where the titans of Wall Street and their inside-jobbers in Congress and at the highest levels of the U.S. government plot their profiteering and pilfering schemes.
Remember Starr International suing the United States for essentially ripping off American International Group Inc. (NYSE: AIG) and its shareholders? Starr is an insurance company controlled by Maurice "Hank" Greenberg, the former CEO of AIG, not long ago the largest insurance company in the world.
I told you about it back in September.
Apparently, this closely watched 37-day trial that was supposed to have ended in November is far from over.
Greenberg's lawyers just got more than 30,000 new documents they were denied before.
And, oh boy, are they a powder keg!
What was covered up when the U.S. government and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York bailed out AIG (as the Fed and the government called it) was how Goldman Sachs inserted one of its directors, Edward Liddy, into the top position at AIG when the government saved it from itself.
Only no one knew how deep the Goldman connection went. No one knew how Liddy, the former CEO of Allstate Corp. (NYSE: ALL), helped push through the bailout with the AIG board - without giving shareholders a chance to vote on it.
The problem for the New York Fed, the U.S. government, and Goldman Sachs was that Greenberg's stock position was enough to kill the bailout if he had a chance to vote his shares.
He never got the chance...
It wasn't enough that Goldman's former CEO was Hank Paulson, the then-Secretary of the U.S. Treasury, and that Goldman got bailed out itself when the Fed and the U.S. government gave it a windfall of profits right out of AIG's pocketbook for some credit-default swaps that weren't even worth anywhere near what the government paid Goldman for them. That was theft, plain and simple.
But, hey, it's not theft if it's government-sanctioned.
So, we're finding out now how deep the rabbit hole is.
The best report I've read so far is the account of it in The New York Times.
For the most part, the trial was a sleeper. Not anymore. These new revelations change everything.
At least, we hope they do.
More from Shah Gilani: On Dec. 10, the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals overturned insider trading convictions of former hedge fund managers Todd Newman and Anthony Chiasson. Not only did the appeals court reverse the much-publicized guilty verdicts against the two traders, but its 28-page decision also effectively rewrites the meaning of insider trading. Here's how this will change trading forever...
About the Author
Shah Gilani boasts a financial pedigree unlike any other. He ran his first hedge fund in 1982 from his seat on the floor of the Chicago Board of Options Exchange. When options on the Standard & Poor's 100 began trading on March 11, 1983, Shah worked in "the pit" as a market maker.
The work he did laid the foundation for what would later become the VIX - to this day one of the most widely used indicators worldwide. After leaving Chicago to run the futures and options division of the British banking giant Lloyd's TSB, Shah moved up to Roosevelt & Cross Inc., an old-line New York boutique firm. There he originated and ran a packaged fixed-income trading desk, and established that company's "listed" and OTC trading desks.
Shah founded a second hedge fund in 1999, which he ran until 2003.
Shah's vast network of contacts includes the biggest players on Wall Street and in international finance. These contacts give him the real story - when others only get what the investment banks want them to see.
Today, as editor of Hyperdrive Portfolio, Shah presents his legion of subscribers with massive profit opportunities that result from paradigm shifts in the way we work, play, and live.
Shah is a frequent guest on CNBC, Forbes, and MarketWatch, and you can catch him every week on Fox Business's Varney & Co.