MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
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How Goldman Sachs Rescued Libya
By EmmaZahn on Wed, 02/05/2014 - 5:00pm |
Note: tongue in cheek, fairly typical finance humor
In October of 2011, Libya was finally freed from autocratic rule after 42 years of oppression under the dictator Muammar Gaddafi. There were many contributing causes to the fall of the Colonel, from the rebellious uprising of National Transitional Council (NTC) armed forces to the sanctions imposed by the West, including the freezing of bank accounts and the boycott of the nation’s oil exports.
But of all these factors in the liberation of the Libyan people, none are quite so unsung as those made by the American investment bank, Goldman Sachs.
Goldman, you see, may have actually been instrumental in the fall of the dictator, in an operation so devious and brutally effective that we can only assume it had been carried out at the behest of the Department of Defense or, at least, with their tacit approval. While no proof of this cooperation between the bank and the United States exists (officially), it is hard to witness the effectiveness with which the bankers neutralized their target and not conclude some sort of intentionality.
URL:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/02/03/how-goldman-sachs-rescued-libya.html
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Comments
Here is the NYT story the above is riffing off of:
Libyan Investment Fund Sues Goldman Over Loss - NYTimes.com
and here are some about it I read a couple of years ago:
Goldman Sachs lost 98% of Gaddafi's $1.3bn investment | Business | The Guardian
Report: Goldman Angered Libya After $1.3 Billion Investment Vanished | Fox Business
What I thought was funny then was how Goldman offered to make things right by asking Libya to put up another $3.7 billion. That and how one of their prospectuses contained a typo putting a multiplier where a division sign was supposed to be.
Made me feel good about being out of that pressure-cooker industry.
by EmmaZahn on Wed, 02/05/2014 - 5:44pm
You can read up on Dragon speech software, where Goldman Sachs was supposedly advising the investors while sitting back and letting them sign away all their company to a bankrupt investor. Goldman Sachs eventually won the lawsuit about 12 years later, as in the end they weren't actually required to do anything to take their huge chunk of cash, and leading a lamb to a slaughter was just part of doing business.
As someone noted, losing $1 billion probably didn't affect Libya very much. I imagine freezing assets had much more effect. Still, it's some insight into how much a pariah was after they started cooperating in 2003 - good enough to steal from, and then a quick about face because of a protest in Benghazi? Funny, I don't see NATO grouping to invade the Ukraine right now, and probably the government there has killed more people.
by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 02/07/2014 - 1:30am