what happened was this investor john paul son was bearish on housing and the financial market, didn t have enough to bet against, so he went to goldman sachs in early 2007 and said, if you create this product, this cdo product, i can bet against it, and goldman turned around and sold it to some of its investors, and the accusation is that they didn t tell goldman sachs didn t tell these investors that, hey, john paulson played a role in selecting some of the underlining securities behind this deal. so what part of that is allegedly wrong? it s not the bets, it s not john paul s paulson, not goldman creating an ability for people to bet against the mortgage market. in fact, those turned out to be smart bets in the end. the issue is whether or not goldman was honest with one of its clients that another one of its clients was betting against this, and had some stake in it. yeah, it s not so much that goldman was betting against mortgages at the time. that looks icky to us they were
jewish-led business that is other banks refused to deal with. it entered into transactions with smaller companies that wall street wouldn t deal with. it was the enabler for companies to grow. three former u.s. treasury secretaries, jon corzine and the current head of the bank of canada. goldman became the biggest investment bank on wall street and one of the most influential companies in the world. but all of that has turned on its head. today some argue that goldman s influence reaches well beyond wall street into the corridors of power in washington. that the company got special treatment or influenced government policy to line its own pockets. in truth, it could be that goldman always known to hire the smartest people around, may have just made wise choices and hedged its bets. goldman is charged by the securities and exchange commission with double-dealing, working against one set of clients in favor of another. also, goldman has submitted some 20 million pages of evidence to cong
a day spill. that s a separate deal, right? they ve got the coast guard trying to contain this. what do you do to deal with 1,000 barrels of oil going into the ocean right now? basically two procedures. when the oil gets to the surface, a substantial portion of evaporate. that s part of the natural weathering processes. then they have ocean skimmers that skim the thicker patches of oil off the water. and they use a soapy material called a dispersant to basically wash the surface of the water and when it gets down into the water column, then the natural bacteria can start degrading it and turn it back to carbon dioxide. what s the danger to the environment right now? we want to keep it offshore. the danger to the environment is that the weather conditions get bad, strong winds out of the south will push the oil closer to land. and, of course, the closest to land, there s fragile coastal areas of louisiana, the chandelier islands, and then
right now, and i m afraid to say he s not alone. what costs the system more, him going to the emergency room because that s where he can get health care or the system when it kicks in? what do we think is going to be a better deal? absolutely, ali, he spent four days before we talked to him in the emergency room in intensive care the entire amount of time. that definitely cost the system more than putting him on some sort of insurance, putting him on medicaid and letting him buy the prescriptions. he literally goes out his prescription, because it s $640 a month, and his paycheck every two weeks is less than that, ali. costs the system more right now, but his only choice. he doesn t have another choice. positive poppy, thanks for that. we re going to be on this goldman hearing tomorrow. senate republicans say they ll block the start of democrats debate on financial reform as they work to finalize their own proposed legislation. gop lawmakers say the democratic version has some
misleading their investors by not telling them that john paul son and his team played a role in selecting some of this underlining securities for this deal. so it s more of a misleading rather than a conflict of interest charge. all right. so you know this from covering this for a long tile. we know this. that people are mad about what happened in the economy. they think it s not fair dealing. goldman has been one of those names that continues to pop up as having made money on something everybody else has lost money on. and i guess my concern as we go into these hearings tomorrow is that it s too satisfying to find goldman sachs responsible for the downturn in our economy for betting against america, for doing something bad. but ultimately, that stuff wasn t illegal. true. to me, it s really fascinating and important case, because it s probably the first time a major firm and the major, the biggest on the street, has been accused of defrauding its investors as part of this whole fi