Sorry this is so late, folks! Summertime and the living is easy!<\/p>\n
More Fed-watching<\/a>!<\/p>\n Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke called for maintaining accommodation even as the minutes of policy makers\u2019 June meeting showed them debating whether to stop bond buying by the Fed in 2013.<\/p>\n \u201cHighly accommodative monetary policy for the foreseeable future is what\u2019s needed in the U.S. economy,\u201d Bernanke said yesterday in response to a question after a speech in Cambridge, Massachusetts.<\/p>\n The Fed chairman spoke just three hours after the central bank released minutes of the June 18-19 gathering showing that about half of the 19 participants in the Federal Open Market Committee wanted to halt $85 billion in monthly bond purchases by year end. At the same time, the minutes showed many Fed officials wanted to see more signs employment is improving before backing a trim to bond purchases known as quantitative easing.<\/p>\n The debate underscores Bernanke\u2019s challenge in affirming that, even after starting to reduce monthly bond buying, policy makers plan to maintain unprecedented stimulus with a record-high balance sheet and near-zero target interest rate.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The persecution of Fabulous Fab for doing his job is entering a new stage<\/a>:<\/p>\n After the allegations, he kept his head down. He testified succinctly before Congress, left his job to enroll in a doctoral program, and popped up in Africa doing charity work.<\/p>\n This is the new Fabrice Tourre who will walk into Manhattan federal court July 15. Goldman Sachs paid a then-record $550 million fine to settle the allegations. Tourre chose to fight them. U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest, who will oversee the trial, summed up the SEC\u2019s case like this: \u201cTourre handed Little Red Riding Hood an invitation to grandmother\u2019s house while concealing the fact that it was written by the Big Bad Wolf.\u201d If he loses – and he could go to jail over this – one lesson must be learned by all fund sponsors: it must be stated in the offering materials, in big bright red letters, that all the assets of the fund were bought from somebody else. Somebody who will not, presumably, be too upset if they subsequently decline in value.<\/p>\n
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In 2010, the Securities and Exchange Commission sued New York-based Goldman Sachs and Tourre for fraud for concealing the role of the hedge fund Paulson & Co., founded by billionaire John Paulson, in selecting the assets inside the Abacus portfolio — assets Paulson wanted to fail.<\/p>\n
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Tourre\u2019s court date threatens to undo some of the progress Goldman Sachs has made in rehabilitating its image. In the lead-up to his trial, the bank and its former employee have exhibited an awkward arm\u2019s-length relationship. Goldman Sachs is paying for Tourre\u2019s defense and for the use of a sophisticated public-relations team from Sard Verbinnen & Co., but the bank is limited by the terms of its SEC settlement in what it can say publicly about the Abacus deal.
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\u201cThis is so clearly a case of scapegoating,\u201d said Dennis Kelleher, CEO of Better Markets, an advocacy group that has lobbied for the overhaul of financial regulations. \u201cIt\u2019s one of the most egregious misuses of SEC power I\u2019ve ever seen.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n