This is kind of amazing:
This is complicated stuff (for people with no financial background, like me, it’s nightmarish) and I have a longer thing about this coming out later. But the essence of this story is that Tyler Durden over at Zero Hedge has, for months, been complaining that Goldman has been manipulating the NYSE, in particular manipulating program trading in somewhat the same way (although perhaps not to the same extent) that they manipulated the commodities markets. In order to make his case — and his theory has gained a lot of acceptance, to the point where Goldman had to respond to the allegations publicly — he has been analyzing data the NYSE releases on program trading every week.
So what happened this week? The NYSE announced that it will no longer be releasing its weekly program trading data. This is quite obviously a move designed to make it even more impossible to track what’s going on in the NYSE and shield, in particular, Goldman Sachs. Let’s hope there’s a public uproar about this; Zero Hedge posted contact info for NYSE officials, and has urged readers to petition the exchange to restore the old rules in the name of transparency.
Go USA!
BTW- my favorite thing about the Dennis Kneale meltdown I talked about the other day is that when his producers were trying to get Zero Hedge on the air, their producers were apparently completely unaware that Tyler Durden and Marla Singer are characters from Fight Club (read the accompanying email exchange). Apparently the Goldman boys were confused, as well.
Fwiffo
If you’ve got nothing to hide, you’ve got nothing to worry about. Amirite?
Punchy
I used to believe the myriad chatter on the yahoo finance message boards about manipulation of prices, confusing and strange stock volumes being sold, absurdly-timed upgrades and downgrades sending stock prices all over the map….but now i’m becoming more of a believer that most of these conspiracies are rooted in truth….
Brick Oven Bill
I think that it is entirely possible that a post-bubble Congress will define some particular group of international bankers as ‘enemies of the United States’, and process them and their supporters in accordance with Section 3.3 of the Constitution.
Did you know that a person convicted of treason is Constitutionally defined to be ‘attainted’ with treason? Taibbi should keep going.
Hedge Funds should be required to disclose their ‘short’ positions, something they are not currently required to do. This would allow regulators to see who is betting against industries and economies, and judge if inappropriate actions are later taken to increase rates of return.
Comrade Dread
I think you’re dreaming. Congress is complicit in much of this and has many friends and connections on Wall St. The only possible way they would sell them out would be to save their own necks from legions of angry constituents ready to raise hell.
And I don’t see a lot of Americans hitting that point ever. We’re too complacent when it comes to politics.
Brick Oven Bill
I think that you are attainted with a lack of vision Comrade Dread. Those Congresscritters to whom you refer give aid and comfort, potentially rendering opon themselves Section 3.3 attainted status, which is worse than your attainted status of limited vision Comrade.
If (when) this currency falls apart, there will be hell to pay. A post-bubble Congress might be seated by an engaged, screened electorate. It would more likely be seated by the military.
Hunter Gathers
That is just too damned funny. Like when the Wingnuts learned that ‘tea-bagging’ didn’t mean what they thought it meant.
Maude
OT-MOJO has server problems. The building where the servers are had a fire. May be back this afternoon.
Obama has to do over the commodities rip off of 2000.
They’re making a fortune off of oil again. And Goldman Sacks is right in there.
Dennis-SGMM
So we had too much transparency and having less is better? How the hell did they come up with that one? I try to avoid conspiracy theories but this move has me reaching for the tinfoil.
geg6
Whoa. Alert! I’m agreeing with BOB! I am just flabbergasted with that fact, but there you go. A stopped clock is right twice a day and all that. The Taibbi article in RS (actually all of Taibbi’s financial journalism) is a tour de force and anyone who reads it should be pulling out the pitchforks and torches. Goldman is essentially making a play to take over not just the US, but the whole world. It’s truly frightening and I don’t see any way to stop them. We all are nothing but pawns in their march to hegemony. I thought once W was gone, I’d stop feeling like I was living in Lewis Carroll’s imagination. But I haven’t and it’s because it was never really W or Cheney running the show. It’s always been Goldman Sachs. They and all their alumni must be wiped out with extreme prejudice or we’re all fucked, forever and ever.
The Grand Panjandrum
Speaking of Goldman Sachs, here is a tidbit I picked up surfing today:
GS is getting ready to stick it to the taxpayers … AGAIN. My advice to everyone is to make regular contact with your Congressional delegation and let them know what you think of these rats and that you want the infestation removed. The stacked deck works against the taxpayer more and more every passing day.
Zero Hedge also linked to Taibbi’s first on air interview about his new piece. Anyone surprised it wasn’t on US TV?
Martin
Well, if the NYSE is going down this path, then I think Congress is obligated to regulate. A good first step would be a transaction fee on every trade. That would force disclosure and provide a legal framework to use against anyone that didn’t. They could then either force the NYSE to make transaction data public, or the IRS could do it since they would have all the data – and it’d work for the other exchanges as well including commodities and options markets.
Michael
So what we’re saying is that life is just like Rollerball, and the John Houseman character runs Goldman Sachs.
burnspbesq
@Martin:
As a former IRS employee, any suggestion that that agency be used as an information clearinghouse just scares the bejeebers out of me. You’re talking about creating enormous incentives to hack an IT infrastructure that was mostly built during the Johnson Administration, and is a little … well … creaky and leaky.
And you really don’t want to fuck with the legal framework that keeps tax return information not subject to FOIA (with a handful of limited exceptions) and makes unauthorized disclosure of return information by government employees a felony. That’s about as slippery a slope as you can imagine. You might as well staple a copy of your 1040 to your front door.
burnspbesq
@Michael:
And there is no Jonathan.
Cat Lady
Circling back to Dune from the open thread, GS = CHOAM.
“You have no idea how much wealth is involved, Feyd,” the Baron said. “Not in your wildest imaginings. To begin, we’ll have an irrevocable directorship in the CHOAM Company.”
Feyd-Rautha nodded. Wealth was the thing. CHOAM was the key to wealth, each noble House dipping from the company’s coffers whatever it could under the power of the directorships. Those CHOAM directorships — they were the real evidence of political power in the Imperium, passing with the shifts of voting strength within the Landsraad as it balanced itself against the Emperor and his supporters.
Martin
Fair enough on the infrastructure point. If Obama accomplished one government efficiency task, it’d be to get the IRS in the 21st century.
What I’m suggesting is that if the exchanges didn’t provide trading info, that the govt. could. It wouldn’t be unauthorized at that point.
It could go through some other agency, but a transaction fee really would solve a lot of problems and allow this sort of check to take place.
ethan salto
Hey John, you should update your post with this link to a crappy scan of Taibbi’s RS article.
I’ve spent about two hours on Zero Hedge this morning and it’s really into-the-rabbit-hole stuff. I have three (non-finance) degrees and the material there, especially the comments, is mostly bewildering. On the other hand, Taibbi’s article feels light, perhaps requiring book-length treatment, although I have a great deal of trust in him and think he’s the best political journalist in America.
I’m wary of giving anonymous, incomprehensible critiques of Goldman Sachs and the Street too much credence, on the one hand, because we’re one step away from Ron Paul and LaRouchie madness (with perhaps just a soupçon of anti-Semitism), but on the other hand, these are clearly not normal times.
I invite others’ comments, especially those with finance backgrounds who have the time and inclination to evaluate some of Zero Hedge’s claims.
hylen
Taibbi article
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