And surprise, surprise, another tie to the new Obama team. This same old story gets increasingly old during this administration that talked so much about change. It's the same old problem involving the same old people who are working as deeply with the Obama administration as they did with the Bush team. Maybe even deeper. Does anyone have much of an appetite for these horror stories? If Washington couldn't grasp the moment during the peak of the crisis, how can anyone have any confidence that they will take serious action now? Let's face the facts here: Washington - Republicans and Democrats alike - is owned by Wall Street and will consistently act in Wall Streets best interest over the rest of us. Until we see otherwise, let's stick with that assumption.
Ohhh, Wall Street must be shaking in their boots with this news.
While the investigations are in the early phases, authorities appear to be looking at whether securities laws or rules of fair dealing were violated by firms that created and sold these mortgage-linked debt instruments and then bet against the clients who purchased them, people briefed on the matter say.
One focus of the inquiry is whether the firms creating the securities purposely helped to select especially risky mortgage-linked assets that would be most likely to crater, setting their clients up to lose billions of dollars if the housing market imploded.
Some securities packaged by Goldman and Tricadia ended up being so vulnerable that they soured within months of being created.
