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Comment by beloch | Hacker News Reader

Well, at least they didn't start another famine[1]... this time.

Question: How does Goldman Sachs still get away with this stuff? Due to their lengthy rap sheet, multiple governments and every law enforcement agency in the world should be watching their every action. It's a safe bet they're going to do something illegal again... and again... and again. Why aren't they being caught in the act and stopped before they can waltz off with the profits? Why haven't they been shut down or barred from doing business in the jurisdictions they've screwed over? Malaysia is going after Goldman Sachs for reparations, but have they kicked the company out of Malaysia?

[1]https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/johann-har...

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Well, once you realize that essentially, large American Fortune 500 companies are actively supported by its spy agency (hint: They Hate Snowden) through a veil of foreign aid and other friendly name sounding causes such as "volunteers of Amazonian language preservation of America" calling in military assets to put down a rebellion from the foreign country, that get in their way of the lootin of their country.

The book 'Confessions of Economic Hitman' perfectly illustrates a sort of "active measures" that take place with increasing lethal consequences for those that oppose them.

    1. identify elites in a country (ex. bankers, biz ppl)

    2. lucrative contracts and monopoly handed out to elites via government.

    3. profit???

    4. If no profit, use bribe to corrupt key players.

    5. If still no profit, send in the jackals (what EH calls professional assassins), put poison in cigars, drone strike.

    6. If tradecraft fails, then they put boots on the ground.

South America is a very good example. It's been thoroughly pillaged by American corporations now for over a century, which has given rise to narco-economy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKwJI9axblQ

> Question: How does Goldman Sachs still get away with this stuff?

Answer: Because there's a history of Goldman Sachs executives going from Wall Street to Washington DC (Government) taking up top positions - ex: Paulson as Treasury Secretary - so they can create and change Laws to suit their business.

In short, it's like a Thief who gets himself appointed as the Judge for his own Trial.

> As the man who presided over the biggest market meltdown in recent U.S. history, he has become a symbol of two worlds colliding—he's the Goldman Sachs CEO who came to Washington and then had to bail out his old friends on Wall Street.

Source: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/02/hank-pa...

Related: [2009] Why Goldman Always Wins => https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/10/why-gol...

Piketty calls them supermamagers. This is interesting https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-supermanagerial-reic...

A bit verbose, but very insightful.

> How does Goldman Sachs still get away with this stuff?

When reality doesn't agree with logic, it's time to examine your premises.

In this case, the premise that there is any force on the planet more powerful than concentrated money and power. Who, exactly, is going to stop them?

Their "alumni" run the organizations that are supposed to prosecute them.

Are they? The article says they have one guilty plea and have charges against another. And they are still investigating GS (and other banks).

From the article:

> The authorities said that at least one high-ranking executive in the bank’s Asian operations was aware of the scheme, which dodged Goldman’s systems to detect the payment of bribes. That person, unidentified in the court filings, has not been charged. According to three people familiar with the matter, the executive was Andrea Vella, who was the co-head of Goldman’s Asian investment banking business.

>Federal prosecutors said Tim Leissner, a former Goldman investment banker who spent years courting Mr. Low, pleaded guilty in August to taking part in the bribery and money laundering scheme. He left the firm in 2016 after the scandal first emerged.

So it seems like rogue employees (since they had to hide from the company) and not some orchestrated thing where GS (as a company, under the direction of a lot of execs and everyone being on board) actually planned and executed.

At most, they'll pay a modest fine and admit no wrongdoing and repeat we go. It always seems like a rouge employee.

The worst part of all this is that so many super smart people actually want to work in a company like this.

Money buys anything. This works everywhere

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