Daily Archives: January 26, 2013

Can the Federal Reserve Really Refuse To Accept and To Credit A Platinum Coin Deposited By the US Mint?

By Joe Firestone

The issue of whether the Fed can really refuse to accept and credit a deposit of a platinum coin with its face value, is being raised frequently on blog posts about Platinum Coin Seigniorage (PCS) and the Trillion Dollar Coin (TDC). In the past, I’ve argued that the Fed cannot; and the final decision on taking the TDC off the table was actually made by the President, and not by Chairman Bernanke.

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Goldman Sachs Proof that God hates its Customers

By William K. Black

The chief executive of Goldman Sachs, which has attracted widespread media attention over the size of its staff bonuses, says he believes banks serve a social purpose and are “doing God’s work.”

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Goldman Sachs: Doing “God’s Work” by inflicting the Wages of Sin Globally

By William K. Black

The central point that I want to stress as a white-collar criminologist and effective financial regulator is that Goldman Sachs is not a singular “rotten apple” in a healthy bushel of banks.  Goldman Sachs is the norm for systemically dangerous institutions (SDIs) (the so-called “too big to fail” banks).  Impunity from the laws, crony capitalism that degrades democracy, and massive national subsidies produce exceptionally criminogenic environments.  Those environments are so perverse that they produce epidemics of “control fraud.”  Control fraud occurs when the persons who control a seemingly legitimate entity use it as a “weapon” to defraud.  In finance, accounting is the “weapon of choice.”  It is important to remember, however, that other forms of control fraud maim and kill thousands.

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The OCC’s Tragic Response to the Frontline expose: The Untouchables

By William K. Black

On January 25, 2013, I made this comment on Frontline’s web site discussing its documentary: “The Untouchables” and an accompanying (January 22, 2013) article by Jason Breslow entitled: Were Bankers Jailed In Past Financial Crises?

I addressed two statements in that article.  The first statement reads:

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Why the World Economic Forum and Goldman Sachs are Capitalism’s Worst Enemies

By William K. Black

It is fitting that Goldman Sachs is the recipient of this year’s “Public Eye” designation, but it is even more fitting that it is being announced during the World Economic Forum (WEF) at Davos.  Goldman Sachs exemplifies the travesty that WEF has created.  It is not the worst of the worst.  It is representative of the financial world of systemically dangerous institutions (SDIs) that are spreading crony capitalism through the West.  The SDIs are the so-called “too big to fail (or prosecute)” banks.

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