Thursday, February 25, 2010

CULPA SEM CASTIGO

Continua a denúncia das actividades ilegais, imorais e muitas vezes criminosas praticadas por grandes bancos que estiveram na origem das várias fontes que alimentaram a crise financeira global.
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Até agora, porém, nada foi substancialment alterado na regulamentação que consentiu, explicita ou implicitamente, os logros vendidos em todo o mundo. Nem foram responsabilizados pessoalmente os principais culpados.
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A reclamação de regulamentação mais exigente de transparência dos processos por si só não basta: primeiro, porque pode retirar carga à responsabilidade que impende sobre os fautores dos logros, que invocarão terem realizado as suas actividades ao abrigo dos preceitos legais em vigor ainda que essas actividades objectivamente tenham causado danos generalizados e de enorme dimensão a terceiros; segundo, a multiplicação de regulamentos suscita a multiplicação dos meios hábeis para os contornar;
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Se, objectivamente, há culpados, a eles deve ser exigido o ressarcimento das perdas sofridas por terceiros.
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Fed probes Goldman role in Greek crisis
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The US central bank is looking into Goldman Sachs’s role in arranging contentious derivatives trades for
Greece, which helped the country to massage its public finances, Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, revealed on Thursday.
“We are looking into a number of questions relating to
Goldman Sachs and other companies and their derivatives arrangements with Greece,” Mr Bernanke said, noting that the US Securities and Exchange Commission was also interested in the issue. However, Mr Bernanke did not give any more details about the investigations.
Testifying before Congress, the Fed chairman also criticised the use of financial instruments, such as credit default swaps (CDS), that destabilised a country or created runs against governments as “counterproductive”. Mr Bernanke’s comments came as an official in German chancellor Angela Merkel’s ruling Christian Democratic Union party said the G20 nations were discussing whether a ban on the speculative use of CDS was workable.
The
renewed uncertainty about Greece prompted a further sell-off of the country’s bonds and the euro amid rising fears that Athens faced a credit ratings downgrade that would complicate its goal of refinancing its debt in capital markets.
Greek bonds saw one of their biggest one-day falls of the year with yields on two-year bonds climbing to 6.4 per cent. The euro fell to a one-year low against the yen and near a nine-month low against the US dollar. This was in spite of signals from Athens that it would introduce new austerity measures early next week.
Goldman has come under fire from European regulators for structuring transactions that helped Greece trim its debt figures after it joined the European monetary union in 2001. As Greece’s public debt grew to exceed its annual gross domestic product, the bank helped it organise a currency trade to delay its repayments while meeting European deficit limits.
Goldman has said that the currency swaps played a minimal role in Greece’s current financial crisis and that the transactions were in line with European regulations. However, a senior Goldman banker told a UK parliamentary committee last week that the bank should have been more transparent.
Separately, Phil Angelides, chairman of the US Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, told the Financial Times that he was concerned about the financial market practice of creating securities and “fully betting against them” – and about Goldman’s role in particular. Goldman declined to comment.

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