Did Goldman Sachs prompt the credit crunch and economic collapse?
There is widespread speculation that the SEC is chasing Goldman Sachs regarding an alleged $1 billion fraud lawsuit because it believes that the deal involved actually brought down the worldwide economy and precipitated the credit crunch. This is a rather major assumption on behalf of the regulator as many in the market place believe the US sub-prime mortgage market pushed too far too quickly and every mortgage company in the sector was chasing the next big buck.
It will be interesting to see if the Goldman Sachs case makes it to court and we hear details about communications between investors, underwriters and Goldman Sachs executives. However, speculation in the market place today suggests there are no "smoking" e-mails which directly infer any wrongdoing by the company and indeed the very fact, as we have mentioned on numerous occasions, that Goldman Sachs itself made in $90 million loss on the transaction in question does not appear to be the actions of a company looking to dupe investors.
There is some miniscule speculation in the market place that the Goldman Sachs court case could be the first of many similar actions by the US regulator but these types of issues are very difficult to prove in a court of law and can drag on for months if not years.
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