Behind Goldman Sach's mess are juicy revealing e-mails

By Dian Vujovich

Sometimes truths are revealed in the strangest of places. Take the Goldman Sacks financial subprime product mess. A lot of what happened within that company comes to light thanks to the e-mails written by Fabrice Tourre, the only one named in the SECs fraud case against the firm, to his girlfriend.

In a Reuter’s story filed shortly about 4:20 a.m. this morning, titled “Goldman’s “Fabulous” Fab’s conflicted love letters”, come some notes that won’t do much to put a positive spin on the we-didn’t-do-anything-wrong side of that firm’s story.

The e-mails were writteng in 2007 and you must read the
entire story! But until then, here are some tidbits from the piece:

• “Tourre, a Goldman Sachs bond trader, also wrote in the emails of the impending collapse of the subprime mortgage market and how he was masterminding ways at Goldman to make money from it…”

• “In the email exchanges between Tourre and his girlfriend, Marine Serres, Tourre comes off as a young, hotshot trader who foresaw the subprime meltdown while still selling shoddy subprime-backed products so prolifically he could peddle them to “widows and orphans.”

•”Anyway, not feeling too guilty about this, the real purpose of my job is to make capital markets more efficient and ultimately provide the U.S. consumer with more efficient ways to leverage and finance himself, so there is a humble, noble and ethical reason for my job ;) amazing how good I am in convincing myself !!!” Tourre wrote an e-mail to his girlfriend in January 2007.

• “Earlier in 2007, in an e-mail to a friend, Tourre shares his fears that the product he helped create is crumbling — and he has a sense of humor about it.
“It’s bizarre I have the sensation of coming each day to work and re-living the same agony – a little like a bad dream that repeats itself,” Tourre writes. “In sum, I’m trading a product which a month ago was worth $100 and which today is only worth $93 and which on average is losing 25 cents a day …That doesn’t seem like a lot but when you take into account that we buy and sell these things that have nominal amounts that are worth billions, well it adds up to a lot of money.”

Read the full story at:: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN2516585020100426