* At the very least, no admission of wrong doing should be worth a hell of a lot more imo.
By Hossein Askari and Noureddine Krichene
Jul 28, 2010
And he looked up, and saw the rich men that were casting their gifts into the treasury. And he saw a certain poor widow casting in thither two mites. And he said, Of a truth I say unto you, This poor widow cast in more than they all: for all these did of their superfluity cast in unto the gifts; but she of her want did cast in all the living that she had.
- Gospel According to St Luke
The Barack Obama administration and the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) must have missed the lesson of the parable of the widow's mite in their upbringing and education. They should read the parable over and over again to get the message. The New York judge, the Honorable Barbara S Jones, who must still approve the settlement of the SEC's case against Goldman Sachs, should do the same before passing judgment.
The pending settlement of the case against Goldman Sachs, which was originally filed in April of this year, calls for a payment of US$550 million ($300 million to the US Treasury and $250 million to investors who lost in mortgage-backed securities that Goldman marketed) and does not require an admission of wrongdoing on the part of Goldman Sachs (normally the case in such settlements); instead, Goldman just admits that it gave "incomplete information" and that this was a "mistake" that it "regrets", and hands over the $550 million.
Now $550 million is a lot of money to mere mortals, that nobody can deny. But to Goldman Sachs? It is equivalent to just 4% of Goldman's net earnings for just one year, 2009 ($13.38 billion); or 3.4% of its bonus pool ($16.2 billion) for 2009. All this in one year, a year while the rest of the world was suffering.
remainder:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/LG28Dj02.html