Goldman's $5.1 Billion Fine - Caveat Venditor

Goldman Sach's is supposedly coughing up a $5.1 billion headline figure for its role in mis-selling dodgy Mortgage Backed Securities in the 2005-2007 run up to the financial crisis. It is great that such mis-selling is now resulting in settlements that clearly penalize the organizations involved. I don't mind the odd rip-off here and there in life, but we are talking about investors in pension funds, shareholders in other banks being ripped off by being mis-sold securities supposedly worth billions that were being sold as investment grade when they clearly were not ! However, in reality Goldman will be paying much less as this article makes it clear. I normally subscribe to the rule "caveat emptor" which means buyer beware when it comes to the world of finance but with all these settlements we clearly have a case that "caveat venditor," that is, seller beware is part and parcel of the modern world of finance. These settlements must be hurting these investment bankers - think of all the bonuses they must be foregoing when making such settlements. Still since their stock price has been doing nothing for a decade one could reasonably question whether any bonuses should have been paid during this entire period. 

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