Lehman Brothers Scandal on 60 Minutes: Brooksley Born tried to warn us. Elizabeth Warren picks up after Eliot Spitzer dropped the ball?

Please click HERE to see a shocking analysis of the collapse of Lehman Brothers by "60 MINUTES", and lack of prosecution of those who knew exactly what they were doing.  The alarmed, loyal and responsible employee of 14 years -- Mathew Lee -- who tried to alert Sr. Management at Lehman Brothers was "terminated."

While I do like Scott Brown, and admire some of his independent actions, his opponent in the upcoming Massachusetts race for Senate, Elizabeth Warren, is running on platform, with a proven history, of knowing what went down on Wall Street and a desire to prosecute those who were responsible.  Hopefully this will happen SOON and will include Lehman's auditors, Ernst & Young, as well as the so-called Federal regulators who were working IN-HOUSE at Lehman Brothers, and were aware of the abuse of the practice called "REPO 105."

From Wikipedia: "Repo 105 was used by investment bank Lehman Brothers three times according to a March 2010 report by the bankruptcy court examiner. The report stated that Lehman's auditors, Ernst & Young, were aware of this questionable classification.^[1] Law firm Linklaters has received unfavorable press treatment in relation to their issuance of an English law opinion which characterised the arrangements as a true sale as opposed to a transfer by Lehman with a charge back in favour of the transferor.^[2]

Examiner’s Report

The report published on March 11, 2010, was titled "Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. Chapter 11 Proceedings". The Examiner in this matter was Anton R. Valukas, Chairman of Jenner & Block. The report details the use of both "repo 105" and "repo 108" which are basically identical procedures, the first costing 5% and the second 8% of the assets exchanged. In other words, assets valued at 100 will produce 95 in cash, assets valued at 100 will produce 92 in cash respectively.

After the Examiner’s report was published, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sent letters to chief financial officers of nearly two dozen large financial and insurance companies asking about their firms' use of repurchase agreements, including the number and amount of such agreements that qualify for sales accounting, and detailed analysis of why such transactions can be treated as sales. SEC chairman, Mary Schapiro, indicated that the agency was trying to determine whether other companies used similar techniques as the "repo 105" used by Lehman Brothers.^[3]

[edit] Fraud charges

In response to the report, the auditors said that the transactions were accounted for in line with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. However, New York attorney general Andrew Cuomo filed charges against Ernst & Young in December 2010, alleging that the firm "substantially assisted... a massive accounting fraud" by approving the accounting treatment.^[4] The Wall Street Journal drew attention to the increasing levels of fees that Ernst & Young had been paid by Lehmans from 2001 to 2008.^[5]"

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I haven't yet heard of anyone being prosecuted and/or going to jail from these charges.  

Perhaps of interest: It was Sept. 13, 2008, when the U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers saw that its shares shed three-quarters of their value, and announced a record $3.9 billion loss and a restructuring plan.

President at the time was George W. Bush.  However, Obama has not fired, or at least INVESTIGATED, Paulson or Geithner, who played suspicious roles in the bailout and possible cover up of Goldman Sachs role in our country's biggest Economic Crisis. Much as I admire Obama, I have wondered if our first black president was given a shot at the Presidency ONLY if he let the scoundrels maintain their positions in the White House.  Hopefully, he -- or someone -- will now get the chance to hold the offending parties accountable.

This is not a partisan issue.  This is an inssue that should concern all citizens and, in my opinion, is a lot more relevant to voters than same sex marriage, birth control, where the president was born, or who is a better Christian.  If we throw people in jail for smoking cannibus, or fine kids and their parents for underage drinking, shouldn't the people who KNEW about what sounds like criminal activities that impacted the global economy and the National Debt be held accountable? 

Of course, the taxpayers will have to foot the bill for any such legal actions.  Just as we did for Kenneth Starr and the Lewinsky investigation.  The biggest scandal in that waste of time, IMHO, was that we paid Starr and Co. $70 million to investigate...ummm, a sexual indiscretion (which did not cost the taxpayers any money)? Meanwhile, taxpayer dollars continue to pay for Congress to investigate such things as the abuse of steroids by baseball players? Doesn't Congress have more important things to do than to investigate baseball and blow jobs (as long as taxpayer dollars aren't involved)?  Like maybe investigating some of those involved in contributing to the biggest economic crisis in our country's history? 

OBL's stated goal was to bring down the Western economy.  He was stupid. We appear to be quite capable of doing it ourselves. 

 

 

Comments

[Shelly Bernal]

The injustice is appalling and I agree with you that this is not a partisan issue. I also stand up with you that this issue is much more relevant than all of the social ones we bicker about constantly. Apparently SEC and Federal Reserve regulators were in-house at Lehman Brothers and did not call attention to the blatant mismanagement so the government doesn't think it can win a case. Well, I say then let's go after every single one of those in-house regulators as well as all of their superiors! If not, what is the point of even having government oversight?

[candace clemens]

Thanks for reading my post and your thoughtful and intelligent response. Hope there are a lot more out there like you! :-) If so, there may be some hope.