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Goldman Sachs accused of deceiving customers

From our Washington correspondent

Goldman Sachs has managed to earn 3.7 billion dollars in betting, starting in 2007, the collapse of the mortgage-market. In doing so, the giant Wall Street acted against the interest of some of its customers, which it sold securities that he knew "toxic". This is the conclusion, after months of investigation, the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the U.S. Senate.

Tuesday, during public hearings stretched on Capitol Hill, Lloyd Blankfein, the head of the giant Wall Street, has categorically denied these allegations."We do not speculate massively downward in the housing market and we certainly do not bet against our clients," he was forbidden under the spotlight, saying that even on the mortgage-market, Goldman Sachs has lost about $ 1.2 billion in 2007-2008.

"Nobody in the management of Goldman Sachs has never asked me to bet on a decline in the subprime market," added before skeptical senators, Joshua Birnbaum, the former head of structured products of the bank, also on the bench defendants.

Convinced otherwise, armed with emails and internal documents seized in the bank, the debonair Senator Carl Levin, glasses pavement at the end of his nose, led a determined assault Tuesday. But the chairman of the committee was confronted with a wall.He vainly tried to tell the past and present officials of Goldman Sachs called before him (including one French employee), how could they believe in the quality of debt issued by mortgage lenders whose reputation was terrible. Receivables classified as "business of shit" in an email exchange between two bank officials. "How many of these" affairs of shit "did you sell to your customers? asked, exasperated, Senator Levin. You've sold hundreds of millions. "

Bankers Daniel Sparks and Michael Swenson, impassive without being arrogant, but obviously confident of the merits of their point of view, seemed not to understand or what they asked or what they were charged.They also questioned the methods of calculating profits of Goldman Sachs selected by the committee.

Battle of Senate proceedings

According to Senator Levin, the investment bank has yet actually decided in late 2006 to a major cleanup of its accumulated risk on securities backed by the real estate markets whose collapse loomed. By discipline, to limit its risks and if possible in the hope of profiting from the trend, the bank had sold to investors and deliberately chosen for their credulity his titles too "toxic"."We have not been systematically and significantly" net short position "on derivatives of residential mortgages in 2007 and 2008," replied Lloyd Blankfein.

Meanwhile in the Senate floor, Democratic leaders and Republicans arguing over procedural votes before engaging in substantive debate on the reform of Wall Street. The Conservatives want by all means restrict the scope of Democrat Bill before it is submitted to a plenary debate in the room. A compromise is always likely, because both parties want to correct the excesses that precipitated the financial crisis.But the Republican minority wants to take his time, while Democrats want to take this case Goldman Sachs to prohibit such banks with access to the discount window the Fed to speculate on their own account.

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