Homeowners Demand that Goldman Sachs “Pay Back The Bonus”

Goldman Sachs’ Record Bonus Could Prevent All Foreclosures in 2008

(New York, NY) – A chorus of homeowners and their neighbors will drop by a Goldman Sachs investment bank holiday party at BLVD, 199 Bowery, tonight at 6:30 p.m. to ask the company to “payback” their record bonus to ripped off homeowners. Goldman Sachs was a global leader in causing the subprime foreclosure crisis. The firm’s record bonus pool of $18 billion dollars could help 1.8 million homeowners get workouts for their subprime mortgages and prevent the crest of the subprime wave from hitting the American and global economies like a tidal wave in 2008.

Goldman generated windfall profits by buying and securitizing billions in subprime loans, “making” a market for subprime bonds, and then betting that people would lose their homes as they shorted the market in 2007. Before gambling correctly on rising foreclosure rates, the bank was a top supporter of lenders like Fremont Investment & Loan, which was recently sued by Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley for “unfair and deceptive practices on a broad scale.”

“This form of profiteering deserves serious scrutiny from regulators,” says Margaret Groarke, a homeowner active with the Northwest Bronx Community & Clergy Coalition. She continues, “Our reports about investment banks and Goldman Sachs have raised questions that should be of critical interest to government authorities. This record bonus didn’t come from some magic that Goldman Sachs has up its sleeve, in truth this bonus money comes directly from American families who are struggling and failing to pay back high interest rate subprime loans.”

At $10,000 per workout, the Goldman Sachs bonus pool could prevent all of the expected foreclosures in 2008 in the United States, shore up the global economy, and make the bank a hero to millions of families.

Or they could buy more Rolex watches, fur coats, and third homes. Tonight a chorus of homeowners and their neighbors will serenade Goldman Sachs and urge them to do what is right, and payback the bonus to the hard working families that generated their wealth.

Read the report “Wall Street and the Making of the Subprime Disaster” at www.savetheamericandream.org. This report and an additional focused piece on Goldman Sachs is available from jmumm@northwestbronx.org and kpconnor@gmail.com.

[where: 199 Bowery, New York, NY]

~ by jaredran on December 13, 2007.