The resistance is finding its footing

 

When "conservative" party politics becomes bad for business

The actual 'real elites' speak

Or at least they're pouring enough money into it that they assume will take care of it.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Goldman Sachs is determined to destroy the world

It's still happening.  It's been happening all along.  Why would it have stopped when they were bailed out the last time?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Goldman sucks

Goldman Sachs, which has survived and thrived despite countless scandals over the years, may have finally stepped in a pile of trouble too deep to escape.

[...]

Goldman has survived many scandals in recent years. The bank paid $550 million to settle the infamous “Abacus” affair, in which Goldman helped hedge fund investors create a born-to-lose mortgage investment product to bet against.

Then they agreed to pay another $5 billion to settle claims of improper “packaging, securitization, marketing, sale and issuance of residential mortgage-backed securities” between 2005 and 2007.

[...]

There’s even a Donald Trump angle to this latest great financial mess, but the outlines of that subplot – in a case that has countless – remains vague. The bank itself is in the most immediate danger.

[...]

In the 1MDB scheme [which is currently under investigation, with criminal charges filed against Goldman], actors tied to former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak allegedly siphoned mountains of cash out of a state investment fund. The misrouted money went to lavish parties with celebrity guests like Alicia Keys, a $35 million jet, works by Monet and Van Gogh, property in New York, Los Angeles and London, and (ironically) the funding of the movie The Wolf of Wall Street.

[...]

Najib lost re-election in May, ending a 61-year reign for his party. National anger over 1MDB was a major reason for his downfall. The prime minister was allegedly central to the scam, which involved luring investors to national development projects that mostly never took place.

[...]

Malaysian authorities filed criminal charges [...] seeking a stunning $7.5 billion in reparations for the bank’s role in the scandal. Singapore authorities also announced they were expanding their own 1MDB probe to include Goldman.

[...]

The cash for this mother of all bacchanals originally came from bonds issued by Goldman, which earned a whopping $600 million from the Malaysians. The bank charged prices for its bond issuance that analysts believe were suspiciously high – like a massage price that suggests you’re probably getting more than a massage.

[...]

Najib was one of the first world leaders to congratulate Donald Trump on his win in 2016. At least at one time, the two men were pals. [...] Trump hosted Najib at the White House last year, thanking the soon-to-be-ousted leader for “all the investment you’ve made in the United States.”

[...]

On November 30th of this year, the Justice Department filed a civil forfeiture suit targeting more than $73 million funneled into the country by 1MDB players. There is email evidence the money may have been intended to help influence the Trump administration to drop the case.

[...]

[Najib's electoral loss] completely reversed the situation,” says John Pang, a former policy adviser to the prime minister’s office in Malaysia. “Before, you essentially had the victim saying there was no crime. Now, you had the Justice Department meeting with a 1MDB task force in Kuala Lumpur.”

  Matt Taibbi

All this reinforcing for Trump, being in a similar corrupt position, the fact that he can't lose office or his goose is cooked.

In addition to the Malaysian action seeking $7.5 billion, the company is facing two more class-action lawsuits filed by investors, and a significant amount of negative press.

[...]

At year’s end, Goldman is known to be under investigation in the U.S., Singapore and Malaysia, while 1MDB probes are ongoing in at least 10 countries.

[...]

What was in it for the bank? About $600 million in fees [...] “two hundred times the typical fee.”

[...]

Clare Brown of the Sarawak Report, who broke many of the early stories about 1MDB, was writing about Goldman’s pricing a long time ago. In one story in 2013, she noted that when the bank earned $196 million in one transaction, that represented “around 8.8% of the issue’s total nominal value rather than the normal rates, which might be expected to amount to around 0.25%, according to traders.”

Reached by email this week, Brown said recent events only bring what was obvious some time ago into greater focus. “Basically, anyone with any knowledge of the markets and banking could see this deal was fishy as hell,” she says, adding, “What is absolutely clear is there is no way the bosses of the bank could have failed to see what a mere onlooker like myself was calling out back in 2013. They ALL HAD TO KNOW.”

[...]

The scandal showed that all it takes is a corrupt official and a morally flexible bank office to generate billions in public losses.

Continue reading.

 ...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Surprise! Goldman Sachs-related charges filed

U.S. federal prosecutors brought charges of bribery and money laundering in connection with 1Malaysia Development Berhad, an investment development fund affiliated with the Malaysian government. The 1MDB story is wild — there’s a good book about it — but the short version is (allegedly!):

1. A guy named Jho Low convinced senior Malaysian government officials to set up a development fund.
2. The fund raised money by selling billions of dollars’ worth of bonds.
3. Low stole most of the money.
4. He used a lot of it to pay huge bribes to the government officials so they’d keep letting him do this.

[...]

While Goldman now likes to present itself to the public as a tech company run by a beat-dropping DJ, or a champion of the consumer with its Marcus digital bank, the U.S. Department of Justice painted a very different picture on Thursday. It filed criminal charges against two ex-bankers for their alleged role in a money-laundering operation that lined the pockets of Malaysian government officials, their financiers and others.

The U.S. charge sheet outlined a culture of greed — and not just the “long-term greedy” once favored by senior partner Gus Levy in the 1970s. The bank, which arranged $6.5 billion of 1MDB bond offerings that netted it $600 million in fees, is described as being so focused on deals at times that compliance came second. Internal controls were allegedly “easily circumvented” by bankers helping to divert the proceeds for illicit purposes.

Prosecutors’ version of events depicts not one but several senior bankers — including Tim Leissner, who pleaded guilty — colluding to cover up bribes and kickbacks.

[...]

The firm has said previously it raised money for 1MDB without knowing it would be diverted from the development projects. The bank is far from the only one touched by probes into 1MDB around the world. Singapore has fined eight banks and sent four people to jail over the scandal, for instance.

But the seniority of the Goldman employees being implicated by the U.S. authorities is especially troubling. It makes it harder for the bank to dismiss the allegations as the actions of a lone staffer gone rogue.

  Bloomberg

And believe it, they would if they could.

Goldman has faced reputational hits before, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission’s 2010 lawsuit over the sale of mortgage-backed securities before the financial crisis. That triggered much soul-searching at the firm and the creation of a standards committee to review its operations.

Obviously not enough soul-searching.

The 1MDB scandal is more recent, it touches public funds rather than sophisticated hedge funds, and it is escalating at a time when Goldman is under new leadership and steering deeper into newer, consumer-facing businesses.

[...]

Leissner, a former Goldman partner, has pleaded guilty and agreed to forfeit $43.7 million, which sounds like a lot until you read that more than $200 million of the stolen 1MDB money was transferred to accounts controlled by Leissner and a relative of his. (Another Goldman partner, Andrea Vella, is not charged with anything but is alleged to have known about the bribery; he was put on leave at Goldman.)

Gary Cohn and Goldman Sachs' America - Alternative

If you would rather listen to the information than read the long article on Gary Cohn previously linked here, Jeremy Scahill interviews Gary Rivlin, who wrote the article.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Gary Cohn and Goldman Sachs' America

For all Trump's campaign blasting of Hillary Clinton for being a Goldman Sachs puppet, and Goldman's near single-handed destruction of the world's economy in 2008, he has now essentially turned over the US economy to their number one crook. The Intercept has the outrageous story, including a synopsis of "the big short" and Cohn's participation in it.

With Blankfein and Cohn at the top, the transformation of Goldman Sachs was complete. By 2009, investment banking had shrunk to barely 10 percent of the firm’s revenues. Richard Marin, a former executive at Bear Stearns, a Goldman competitor that wouldn’t survive the mortgage meltdown, saw Cohn as “the root of the problem.” Explained Marin, “When you become arrogant in a trading sense, you begin to think that everybody’s a counterparty, not a customer, not a client. And as a counterparty, you’re allowed to rip their face off.”

  The Intercept

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

If you prefer to hear this information than read it, Jeremy Scahill interviews the author on Intercepted.

And It Will Ever Be Thus

After using Goldman Sachs as a punching bag for his campaign, sharply criticizing his political opponents for ties to the investment bank, Donald Trump has taken unprecedented steps to appoint former Goldman Sachs attorneys and executives to the upper echelons of government.

It goes far beyond what’s been reported. Not only is Jay Clayton Trump’s chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, after serving as the attorney who advised the bank during the bailouts of 2008, but new disclosures show that the team Clayton brought with him to oversee the financial market regulator are also former Goldman Sachs attorneys.

[...]

Trump’s inner circle consists almost entirely of former Goldman Sachs executives, including his chief political adviser Steve Bannon, his national security adviser Dina Powell, and his top economic advisor Gary Cohn. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin worked at Goldman Sachs for 17 years. Last month, Trump nominated Eric Ueland, a former Goldman Sachs lobbyist, to serve as as the Under Secretary of State, one of the most senior posts in the State Department.

The appointments coincide with Trump advancing a regulatory and tax agenda that is largely identical to the policy demands of the financial services industry.

  The Intercept

Which is really just a continuation of government at least since George W Bush.

One of the most under-discussed yet consequential changes in the American political landscape is the reunion between the Democratic Party and the country’s most extreme and discredited neocons. While the rise of Donald Trump, whom neocons loathe, has accelerated this realignment, it began long before the ascension of Trump and is driven by far more common beliefs than contempt for the current President.

  Glenn Geenwald

This has been going on at least since I've been paying attention. The ruling class comprises both parties.

Continue reading.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Not With a 10 Foot Pole

Jim Donovan is dropping out as President Donald Trump’s nominee to serve as deputy Treasury secretary.

[...]

Donovan’s loss will be keenly felt inside the Treasury building, since he helped hire all of the political appointees. He was also seen throughout Washington as one of the administration's incoming “grown-ups” meant to bring order and management skills to the department's staff, many of whom have no government or economic policy expertise, said one lobbyist close to the administration.

[...]

The Goldman Sachs executive, nominated in March to serve as Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s No. 2, informed the White House this week that he could not take the job due to family concerns.

  Politico

Trump family concerns, no doubt.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Draining the Swamp

Trump picking as SEC chief someone who once represented Goldman, Sachs may be the least surprising story of 2017: https://t.co/a7F7x2zAEp

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 4, 2017

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Goldman Sachs' Desructive Global Hand

June 30, 2105

According to investigative reports that appeared in Der Spiegel, the New York Times, BBC, and Bloomberg News from 2010 through 2012, Blankfein, now Goldman Sachs CEO, Cohn, now President and COO, and Loudiadis, a Managing Director, all played a role in structuring complex derivative deals with Greece which accomplished two things: they allowed Greece to hide the true extent of its debt and they ended up almost doubling the amount of debt Greece owed under the dubious derivative deals.

A February 2012 BBC documentary on the Goldman Sachs deal provides a layman’s view of the dirty underbelly of the deal, calling it “a toxic import” from America that is “hastening” the downfall of Greece.

  Wall Street on Parade

Yes, that Gary Cohn. Trump's choice to head his economic policy team.

March 3, 2010

Goldman Sachs is at the center of the scrutiny. Recent reports show that the firm consulted Greece as far back as 2000 on ways to take on more debt--and then hide it by packaging the liabilities into complex securities that were then counted as assets. It's the same kind of financial trickery that contributed to the massive housing boom and bust in the U.S.

[...]

Goldman used its insider knowledge of Greece's precarious financial situation to bet on a potential default by Greece. Thanks to its complicated financial maneuvers, the super-bank stands to make a killing in the event Greece defaults or needs to be bailed out.
  Socialist Worker

Which is exactly what happened. Goldman played the same game on Greece in 2010 that it played on American investors in 2007. And it made a killing off both, while its victims were financially destroyed. No one at Goldman paid any price for fleecing people in America, so why not play the game on Greece?

Importantly, investors don't actually have to own the asset that they are arranging a [credit] swap to cover. Thus, swaps can become a tool for gambling on defaults occurring--and can even contribute to defaults taking place.

This is the equivalent of everyone else on a street buying fire insurance on one person's house--and then collecting when the house burns down. There's a reason that's illegal in the insurance business--the incentive is for all kinds of people to load up on insurance and then commit arson to collect. But on Wall Street, the same sort of activity applied to financial investments--called naked credit default swaps--is perfectly legal.

In the case of Greece, it seems that the speculators have pushed the country closer to default.

[...]

These practices forced even Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke--hardly a critic of Wall Street--to admit last week, "Using these instruments in a way that intentionally destabilized a company or a country is--is counterproductive."

"Counterproductive." Not immoral? Unethical?

But, counterproductive for whom? Certainly not for the banksters at Goldman Sachs.

The interest rate that Greece would have to pay on bonds that can raise this money is currently being valued at 7 percent--nearly double what Germany has to pay to borrow and 3 percentage points higher than Greece's borrowing costs before this crisis.

This is the result of investors betting in various ways against Greek bonds. The problem has become so vexing that the German government is trying to identify speculators in Greek debt to prevent them from profiting from any bailout.

How about the big one: Goldman Sachs?

A report in the German newspaper FAZ indicates that AIG sold the credit default swaps on Greece. Ultimately, these transactions enabled Greece to borrow 1 billion euros without adding to its official debt--and according to Bloomberg, Goldman was paid $300 million for arranging the deal.

And that was just one deal.

[...]

In late 2009, Goldman came calling again. A team, led by Goldman President Gary Cohn, proposed that Greece push debt from its health care system into the future by creating another set of derivatives. The proposal was rejected. But Goldman wasn't done. It had loaded up on credit default swaps covering a default by Greece.

[...]

"Wall Street, led here by Goldman and AIG, helped to create the debt, then helped to create the hysteria about possible defaults," Marshall Auerback, a professor of economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, wrote. "As [credit default swap] prices rise and Greece's credit rating collapses, the interest rate it must pay on bonds rises--fueling a death spiral because it cannot cut spending or raise taxes sufficiently to reduce its deficit."

[...]

As a result of these activities, the Securities and Exchange Commission and Federal Reserve Bank are investigating the role that Goldman played. But given the kid-gloves treatment that Goldman has received--not to mention the extent that it's already been bailed out by the government--it seems highly unlikely that anything will come of these inquiries.

Now, there was a bet that could have paid off handsomely, if anyone had been dumb enough to take it.

Oh, and one more thing for Greece:

In addition, privatizations--also done at the behest of financial firms like Goldman--mean that former sources of government revenue, such as toll roads, are no longer in the state's hands--leaving it even less able to pay its public debt.

July 16, 2015

[Goldman CEO, Lloyd] Blankfein and his Goldman team helped Greece hide the true extent of its debt, and in the process almost doubled it. And just as with the American subprime crisis, and the current plight of many American cities, Wall Street’s predatory lending played an important although little-recognized role.

[...]

 For its services, Goldman received a whopping 600 million euros ($793 million).

[...]

 After the 9/11 attacks, bond yields plunged, resulting in a big loss for Greece because of the formula Goldman had used to compute the country’s debt repayments under the swap. By 2005, Greece owed almost double what it had put into the deal, pushing its off-the-books debt from 2.8 billion euros to 5.1 billion. In 2005, the deal was restructured and that 5.1 billion euros in debt locked in. Perhaps not incidentally, Mario Draghi, now head of the European Central Bank and a major player in the current Greek drama, was then managing director of Goldman’s international division.

[...]

As we know, Wall Street got bailed out by American taxpayers. And in subsequent years, the banks became profitable again and repaid their bailout loans. Bank shares have gone through the roof. Goldman’s were trading at $53 a share in November 2008; they’re now worth over $200. Executives at Goldman and other Wall Street banks have enjoyed huge pay packages and promotions. Blankfein, now Goldman’s CEO, raked in $24 million last year alone.

Meanwhile, the people of Greece struggle to buy medicine and food.

[...]

Meanwhile, cities and states across America have been forced to cut essential services because they’re trapped in similar deals sold to them by Wall Street banks. Many of these deals have involved swaps analogous to the ones Goldman sold the Greek government. And much like the assurances it made to the Greek government, Goldman and other banks assured the municipalities that the swaps would let them borrow more cheaply than if they relied on traditional fixed-rate bonds—while downplaying the risks they faced. Then, as interest rates plunged and the swaps turned out to cost far more, Goldman and the other banks refused to let the municipalities refinance without paying hefty fees to terminate the deals.

[...]

Three years ago, the Detroit Water Department had to pay Goldman and other banks penalties totaling $547 million to terminate costly interest-rate swaps. Forty percent of Detroit’s water bills still go to paying off the penalty. [...] Likewise, the Chicago school system—whose budget is already cut to the bone—must pay over $200 million in termination penalties on a Wall Street deal that had Chicago schools paying $36 million a year in interest-rate swaps.

A deal involving interest-rate swaps that Goldman struck with Oakland, California, more than a decade ago has ended up costing the city about $4 million a year, but Goldman has refused to allow Oakland out of the contract unless it ponies up a $16 million termination fee.

[...]

Borrowers that get into trouble are rarely blameless, of course: They spent too much, and were gullible or stupid enough to buy Goldman’s pitches. Greece brought on its own problems, as did many American homeowners and municipalities.

But in all of these cases, Goldman knew very well what it was doing. It knew more about the real risks and costs of the deals it proposed than those who accepted them.

  The Nation

And it kept that knowledge to itself because that was key to soaking the victims.

This is the swamp from which Trump has pulled at least four creatures for his administration, Steve Mnuchin and Gary Cohn to head Treasury and Finance Policy, respectively.

Draining the Goldman swamp to stock the White House.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Our Goldman Overlords

[Goldman Sachs] has an extraordinary history of placing its executives in high-ranking governmental and quasi-governmental positions, from treasury secretaries to senators to the heads of the World and European Central Banks. Goldman has been implicated in the trafficking of toxic mortgages, a sprawling state corruption case in Malaysia, the manipulation of world commodity prices and a heinous episode involving Greece in which the bank helped to mask the country's ballooning debt while simultaneously working with JPMorgan Chase to create an index for betting against Greece's economy.

[...]

The new [GOP] party line, emanating both from Washington and from Alt-Right yahoos on the Internet, is that [Goldman bankers] are no longer the swindling scum-lords Trump said they were a few months ago [during his campaign], but simply smart businessmen.

[...]

Donald Trump has filled his White House with [...] Goldman veterans.

His chief strategist, the unabashed white-supremacist loon Steve Bannon, is a former Goldman banker, as is adviser Anthony Scaramucci. Steve Mnuchin marks the fourth Goldman-pedigreed treasury secretary in the last four presidencies, after Bob Rubin, Lawrence Summers and Hank Paulson.

But the real shocker is the recent appointment of Goldman Chief Operating Officer Gary Cohn to the post of director of the National Economic Council.

[...]

Donald Trump made a lot of political hay out of the iniquity of people like Cohn during his campaign. But his recent appointments are absolute proof that his "populist" message was a crock all along – not that we couldn't have guessed anyway.

[...]

[While other banking institutions were crashing at the end of 2007,] legend on the street was that Goldman was somehow not only going to survive the crash, but prosper and make big profits. How did Goldman do so well during a financial hurricane? The New York Times had an answer: its leaders were smart – and humble!

"Goldman's secret sauce, say executives, analysts and historians," the paper wrote, "is high-octane business acumen, tempered with paranoia and institutionally encouraged — though not always observed — humility."

Where did writers Jenny Anderson and Landon Thomas Jr. get the idea that Goldman's smarts saved them during the mortgage crisis? From Goldman, of course.

[...]

Chaired by Michigan Sen. Carl Levin, the PSI [Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations] scrupulously detailed the efforts by Goldman to get out from under the mortgage crash by dumping its disastrous mortgage investments on its own clients as it simultaneously bet against them.

  Matt Taibbi

This is the point in the movie "The Big Short" where I lost my viewing cool. I did not know about that particular maneuver until I watched that excellent film. If you haven't seen it, I recommend it highly.

I guess we can still say Goldman officials were smart.  At least smart enough to get politicians in their pockets and convince them to make taxpayers absorb the bank's losses.

This maneuver, colloquially described since as the "Big Short" episode, was perhaps the most lurid example of Wall Street iniquity during the crash years. And Trump's new economic adviser, Cohn, played a central role.

[...]

At the tail end of 2006, Goldman execs saw that a) the subprime mortgage market was in serious trouble, and b) the bank itself was dangerously overinvested in it. So they made a frenzied, often deceptive effort to induce their clients to eat what should naturally have been their own losses.

[...]

In one mortgage-based deal called Hudson 1 securities, Goldman helped sell its toxic holdings by saying the bank's interests were "aligned" with those of potential clients, because it would own a tiny, $6 million slice of the deal.

The bank left out the fact that it had a $2 billion bet against the same deal.

[...]

The sales rep [who made one deal to dump some of its toxic inventory on Basis Capital] was so elated that the subject line of his email read "Utopia." He told other execs he'd found the ultimate sucker. "I found white elephant, flying pig and unicorn all at once," he crowed.

Basis Capital later claimed it lost $56 million in six weeks. It filed for bankruptcy within months of the Timberwolf deal.

[...]

Through deals like this, Goldman within months went from having a $6 billion bet on mortgages to having a $10 billion bet against them – a "big short."

All of these moves were made with the assent of the Firmwide Risk Committee, which included Goldman CFO David Viniar, Blankfein and Cohn.

[...]

Goldman probably should have gone out of business in 2007-2008. Two little-discussed acts of government welfare in September of 2008 helped save the company.

[...]

Have you ever seen a Goldman branch or a Goldman ATM? Probably not, because it isn't a commercial bank. But on September 21st, 2008, the government gave it permission to call itself one.

This move, so desperately needed that it was executed on a Sunday night, allowed Goldman access to mountains of life-saving cash from the Federal Reserve.

[...]

The other key move was a decision by the SEC to ban short-selling of financial stocks. This nakedly anticapitalist maneuver allowed Goldman to fend off attacks by speculators who correctly sensed the company was in deep trouble.

[...]

Goldman's higher-ups ended up having a great year. While the whole financial world was collapsing due in large part to behaviors like that of his own bank, Blankfein made $68.5 million, a record for a Wall Street executive. Cohn made $67.5 million. The two were the McGwire and Sosa of the profiting-off-others'-misery era. The bank, meanwhile, would lay off 3,200 lower-level employees within a year.

[...]

For all their brains and humility, these geniuses needed the government to halt the free market on their behalf to survive.

[...]

They are scum, and it's absolutely fitting that so many of them will end up serving the Trump administration.

Fitting, but dangerous for world. We already hear tales of banks doing the exact same things they were doing that led to the 2008 world financial disaster. Get ready for the next.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The Goldman Sachs Stacking Continues

BREAKING: President-elect Trump picks Goldman Sachs president & COO Gary Cohn to be National Economic Council Director - @NBCNews

— CNBC Now (@CNBCnow) December 9, 2016

I thought he was already in, as this post suggests:

@Popehat I got 3 - Bannon, Mnuchin, Cohn.

— Kai Ryssdal (@kairyssdal) December 2, 2016

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

But, Hey. It's Not Their Fault.

When your crew's lack of faith is disturbing. pic.twitter.com/0Cqt8bCFfa

— pourmecoffee (@pourmecoffee) December 3, 2016

Draining the Swamp

@Popehat I got 3 - Bannon, Mnuchin, Cohn.

— Kai Ryssdal (@kairyssdal) December 2, 2016

Trump 1.0: NO GOLDMAN SACHS! Trump 2.0: Okay one Goldman Sachs. Trump 3.0: Three. Six, tops. Trump 4.0: We're having team shirts made.

— (((Popehat))) (@Popehat) December 2, 2016

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

We're About to Find Out if They Really Were Just Racist

That moment when the alt-right started to realize that they were just the latest of Trump's contractors to be stiffed: pic.twitter.com/Gs0lT2e6Zf

— (((Yair Rosenberg))) (@Yair_Rosenberg) November 30, 2016

Mr Trump, this is bullshit. Can you hire someone who doesn't work for Goldman Sachs?

What about that swamp? Huh? https://t.co/t2QkXsrtBy

— Joe Walsh (@WalshFreedom) November 30, 2016

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Drain the Swamp, eh?

Steven Mnuchin, a hedge fund manager and former Goldman Sachs executive, is President-elect Donald Trump's choice for Treasury secretary, the New York Times and CBS News reported Tuesday.

  USA Today

How novel. A Goldman Sachs exec at Treasury.

Mnuchin has no government experience. He would be the third Treasury secretary from Goldman Sachs. Robert Rubin was President Bill Clinton's Treasury secretary, while Henry Paulson ran the department for President George W. Bush.

..but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Why Is Ecuador Afraid of Hillary Clinton?

Whistleblowing site WikiLeaks has confirmed it was Ecuador that cut off Julian Assange’s internet access on Saturday after another batch of leaked emails from Hillary Clinton’s campaign chair was released. WikiLeaks did not elaborate on the grounds for Ecuador’s London embassy, where Assange has spent more than four years after being granted asylum over fears of persecution over his publications, to restrict the whistleblower’s web access.

  RT

Maybe they have reason to be afraid of Hillary. Maybe they are making a statement about Trump. Or maybe they figure they've gone as far as they dare against US desires by housing Assange.

Or maybe it's Goldman Sachs they don't want to displease

[Wikileaks] tweeted that the internet was shut “5pm GMT, shortly after publication of Clinton's Goldman Sachs [speeches].”

....but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 10/20:

The reason: "Quiet pressure from the U.S. government."

Goldman's Fine

Goldman got to keep the money it made illegally for a decade before having to give any of it back. Goldman’s asset-management unit consistently predicts annual growth above ten percent, meaning that the company fully expects to double its money within ten years. Taking that into account, Goldman didn’t really pay a penalty at all, but used ill-gotten gains to generate a bunch of money, only returning some principal well after the fact while keeping the returns.

[...]

So even if you think Goldman is paying some kind of penalty, at best it’s a cut of the profits.

[...]

[And] the biggest beneficiaries in this transaction are the Justice Department, the New York Attorney General’s office, and the other state and federal agencies who receive cash awards, from the civil penalty and the resolution of other claims.

[...]

The upshot: Law enforcement settled a case on behalf of investors and then walked away with the proceeds, while investors got nothing. Goldman Sachs and the Justice Department get to divvy up the profits of a fraud scheme perpetrated on the public.

  New Republic

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.