Goldman Sachs whiz kid Fabrice Tourre is fast becoming the poster boy of the financial crisis, a Michael Milken for the current times. Last week, the SEC filed fraud charges against Goldman Sachs and the 31-year-old Frenchman who calls himself Fabulous Fab. And on Tuesday, Fabulous sat before a Senate panel that wanted to know how he helped a hedge-fund tycoon make a billion dollars by dumping worthless mortgage securities on unsuspecting Goldman customers and then betting against those same securities -- all the while accelerating the burst of the housing bubble and the downfall of the world economy.

"The whole building is about to collapse anytime now," Fabulous wrote in one of the e-mails that have come to light. "Only potential survivor, the fabulous Fab . . . standing in the middle of all these complex, highly leveraged, exotic trades he created without necessarily understanding all of the implications of those monstruosities!!!"

Fabulous, in an e-mail from 2007, described the mortgage business as "totally dead, and the poor little subprime borrowers will not last too long!!!" Yet two months later, he boasted that he had managed to dump some more of the worthless mortgage securities on "widows and orphans that I ran into at the airport."

Now Tourre is a triple-exclamation-point "monstruosity" himself -- and, in true Goldman form, he made few apologies as he testified before the Senate investigators on Tuesday. "I deny categorically the SEC's allegations," said Fabulous, short, slight and looking as though he were on a break from prep school. "I will defend myself in court against these false claims."

Yes, the e-mails were problematic. "I regret these. . . . I wish I hadn't sent those." In his French accent, it came out more like "regret zeez" and "sent doze."

But that was the extent of Fabulous Fab's regrets. "I firmly believe that my conduct was correct," he testified.

Fab's arrogance, and that of his Goldman colleagues who also testified, bested previous displays of hubris by the automotive, oil and tobacco industries. Goldman won't be done in by new congressional regulations or the SEC claims (though both will have more sympathy after Tuesday's performance), but the firm will be in big trouble if customers realize how brazenly Goldman has been abusing them.

The testimony was so maddening that Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, was moved to utter phrases not suitable for a general audience. Twelve times he used a word that rhymes with "ditty" and has to do with what would be called "la merde" in Fabulous Fab's native tongue.

"Look what your sales team was saying about Timberwolf: 'Boy, that Timberwolf was one [censored] deal,' " Levin quoted. "They sold that [censored] deal. . . . How much of that [censored] deal did you sell to your clients?" Pardon his French.

One of the Goldman masters of the universe, Michael Swenson, couldn't even be troubled to learn the pronunciation of the ranking Republican's name. He called Sen. Tom Coburn (Okla.) "Cobourne."

Coburn asked who made the decision on one of Goldman's bets against mortgage securities. And Fabulous wanted to avoid the whole thing. The poor misunderstood millionaire complained that "the last week has been challenging for me and my family, as I have been the target of unfounded attacks."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/27/AR2010042704637.html?hpid=opinionsbox1&sid=ST2010042705380

Do they know the difference between right and wrong?

I would be curious to know if they are atheists or not :)

If you can’t model the past, where you know the answer pretty well, how can you model the future? - William Happer Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics Princeton University

j.p. morgan Wrote:
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> Do they know the difference between right and
> wrong?

These people have no sense of ethics. Right and wrong have no meaning to them. Legal/Illegal are the only things that matter. Believe you me, if they could increase their margin by murdering and eating busloads of children live on television, they'd do it in a heartbeat if they could get away with it. Hell, they'd probably spend months scouring the legal codes for loopholes just so they could identify some gray area that they could shield themselves with.

ThMbY Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> j.p. morgan Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Do they know the difference between right and
> > wrong?
>
> These people have no sense of ethics. Right and
> wrong have no meaning to them. Legal/Illegal are
> the only things that matter. Believe you me, if
> they could increase their margin by murdering and
> eating busloads of children live on television,
> they'd do it in a heartbeat if they could get away
> with it. Hell, they'd probably spend months
> scouring the legal codes for loopholes just so
> they could identify some gray area that they could
> shield themselves with.


+100

__________________________________
That's not a ladybug, that's a cannapiller.

Maybe you should ask a Catholic priest. Or Jimmy Swaggart. Or Jim Bakker. Or Teg Haggart...

Registered Voter Wrote:
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> I would be curious to know if they are atheists or
> not :)

Voter___ Wrote:
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> Maybe you should ask a Catholic priest. Or Jimmy
> Swaggart. Or Jim Bakker. Or Teg Haggart...
>
> Registered Voter Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > I would be curious to know if they are atheists
> or
> > not :)

I am just curious. It would be interesting to see if the ability to disassociate morality or worry about the impact or harm you are doing to others - especially on this magnitude - was formed by folks with a belief in God or not. Why would I care what a Catholic priest has to say, or any evangelical? They mean about as much to me as you do. As far as how they were idiots in their own ways, that is totally unrelated to my question here. They had a belief in God and the likelihood is they were carrying around extreme amounts of guilt after the fact - these guys sound like they have no feelings of guilt at all.

If you can’t model the past, where you know the answer pretty well, how can you model the future? - William Happer Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics Princeton University



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/28/2010 06:21PM by Registered Voter.

It seems to me that it has been amply demonstrated that a belief in God, or lack thereof, is in no way indicative of a propensity for ethical behavior or guilt in the absence of it.

Registered Voter Wrote:
> with a belief in God or not. Why would I care what
> a Catholic priest has to say, or any evangelical?
> They mean about as much to me as you do. As far as
> how they were idiots in their own ways, that is
> totally unrelated to my question here. They had a

Voter___ Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It seems to me that it has been amply demonstrated
> that a belief in God, or lack thereof, is in no
> way indicative of a propensity for ethical
> behavior or guilt in the absence of it.
>
> Registered Voter Wrote:
> > with a belief in God or not. Why would I care
> what
> > a Catholic priest has to say, or any
> evangelical?
> > They mean about as much to me as you do. As far
> as
> > how they were idiots in their own ways, that is
> > totally unrelated to my question here. They had
> a

Belief in God is one thing, valuing His opinion is something else. Even Satan believes in God, but it doesn't mean Satan follows God's rules...

RV and his silly belief that morality is some hw derived from a belief in god..in the ultimate reward or punishment after death.

Personally I believe that empathy..sympathy, the desire to do whats right, is something we are born with...or not.

Registered Voter...a Big talking coward..big man on FFXU...little man in life.

Wall Street is worse than any casino ever could be. In a casino you either have the money to play or your dont. On Wall Street you can create non existent money, options, hedge funds or just fix the books and hire so called CPA's to cover up outright fraud.

The federal government can regulate it to death and nothing will change as long as employees on Wall Street move back and forth into and out of the regulatory system that is supposed to police them.
Attachments:

Vince(1) Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> RV and his silly belief that morality is some hw
> derived from a belief in god..in the ultimate
> reward or punishment after death.
>
> Personally I believe that empathy..sympathy, the
> desire to do whats right, is something we are born
> with...or not.


So you are saying if you grew up in the jungle with only apes for parents, that your morals would magically assert themselves and you would not act like an ape? Yes, you are FUNNY Vincetard.

Today we have the benefit of a functioning, working, society. So at least some of the "morals" on how society should operate carry over into brain function as time goes on and you observe the behavior of others around you. But seriously, it is the height of arrogance to think that somehow you would be some upright and empathetic person if you were not born into a society that has been largely shaped by the cultures of various judeo/christian religious groups. Most of the laws in the US were formed by these same folks - one of the many reasons we don't have Sharia law for instance ruling the land here.

Again, I am not promoting any religion - I am merely pointing out that as much as you want to act like morality springs from some "inner you", truly, it doesn't. Most of the development of early civilization up through the development of advanced sciences is directly attributable to the development of religion in one way or another - either from the early worship of the Sun, or moving on to various other pagan religions. If you don't understand why that is true, then the rest of the discussion is meaningless for you Vince.

If you can’t model the past, where you know the answer pretty well, how can you model the future? - William Happer Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics Princeton University

These Fab emails are the smoking gun. Expect GS to declare Fab a "rogue" and throw him under the bus to save their own asses.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://bible.cc/1_corinthians/13-11.htm

notice he says, 'i regret I sent them' implying he knows whats in them he knows it was wrong. Also implying that he is sorry he got caught. If he is sorry he got caught because of the Emails he KNOWS he did wrong but DOESNT GIVE A FUCK. Especially heinous is the widows and orphans part. WHich is just cartoonish in its villainy.

WashingTone-Locian Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> These Fab emails are the smoking gun. Expect GS to
> declare Fab a "rogue" and throw him under the bus
> to save their own asses.


Every scandal needs a scapegoat, but you know he wasn't a rogue. What he was doing was probably encouraged. It's only that The Fabulous Fab appears to be the guy who brazenly flaunted what he was doing.

__________________________________
That's not a ladybug, that's a cannapiller.

The other GS execs called to the hill were no less arrogent just smart enough not to answer questions as directly or be as flamboyant as this french tart.

I want the phone number of these scumballs Mommies so I can ask them how could they raise things like this
Also the phone numbers of their college professors and couldn't they teach right and wrong to these things

these are the kind of scum who don't give it a thought that their decsions ruined the lives of many

See S&L scandal