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In the animal kingdom, when there is a sick or wounded member of the “herd”, it inevitably becomes an inviting target for a pack of hyenas. It's important to note that if the herd-animal was healthy, or if there was only a single hyena targeting it, that the herd-animal could likely survive the attack. It is only when an unhealthy animal is targeted by a group of hyenas that the possibility of survival plummets to zero.

In the world of humans, no group of people is as closely epitomized by the metaphor of a “pack of hyenas” as the legal profession. Indeed, it is not merely coincidence that one of the most common derogatory terms for lawyer is “ambulance-chaser”. These “professionals” are true “scavengers”, in that they are capable of generating no business or economic activity by themselves, but must rely upon the opportunities provided by others – and generally by the misfortunes of others.

I'm excluding the branch of law dealing with what is termed “solicitor” tasks: conveyances, and other “paper work”. This area of law is not only very dreary to those outside of the legal profession, but it is not the area of legal practice where lawyer's have acquired the reputation of being voracious scavengers. That aspect of law is known as litigation law, or more specifically “personal injury” law.

Anyone who has become a “victim” (in the eyes of the law) becomes a potential “client” of the litigation-lawyer, subject to satisfying a set of criteria which make representing a client a worthwhile investment of the lawyer's time/effort, or more simply “a good bet”. There are a number of signals to litigation-lawyers which make them more likely to take on new clients – and initiate additional litigation.

At the top of the list of any lawyer who practices personal injury law is the “ability to pay” of the potential defendant, more typically known in legal circles as “deep pockets”. Where there is not a defendant with “deep pockets”, then there is no obvious way for a lawyer to recoup his compensation. In that scenario, it is the client who must have the “deep pockets”: being ready/willing/able to fully fund the litigation themselves. Needless to say, there is very little litigation conducted under such terms.

Once there is a tempting target for these legal “hyenas”, the litigation-lawyer looks for signs that this target is not “healthy”. Among the most obvious symptoms of “ill health” is other pending litigation. There are three, related reasons why lawyers will tend to “pile on” to entities who are being threatened with litigation.

First of all, during the “discovery” phase of each and every trail, large amounts of previously confidential information usually emerge and become public knowledge. This constitutes free “ammunition” for other lawyers to use in other litigation (assuming even a minor amount of overlap). Secondly, there is the old adage of “where there's smoke, there's fire”. When one lawyer sees one (or more) other lawyers sinking their teeth into a particular defendant, the “pack” mentality of these scavengers truly comes to life.

Lastly, there is the magic of “precedent”. Once one litigation succeeds, it becomes a template on which to base a potentially infinite number of new claims. In the case of Goldman Sachs, the only scenario where the SEC law-suit doesn't result in a dangerous precedent (dangerous for Goldman Sachs) is if this whole exercise was simply a sham: pretend to prosecute one of the banksters, acquit them – and then claim that the whole cabal has been “exonerated”. While I won't completely dismiss such a possibility, looking at the evidence (and the politics) as a whole, this seems to be a genuine attempt at exposing bankster misconduct.

When we look at these criteria, it is obvious that suing Goldman Sachs (and its fellow fraud-factories) is enough to get the legal hyenas salivating profusely: plenty of “weak spots” to attack, and the “deepest pockets” of any defendants in the world – given that their corporate coffers can directly funnel money from the U.S. Treasury, and indirectly from the Federal Reserve (through its 0% interest “loans”).

The other point which must be made (given all the recent talk of a negotiated “settlement” by Goldman Sachs) is that even if Goldman Sachs gets off lightly, and is able to reach a settlement where the bankster doesn't even have to “admit guilt”, this distinction is far more important for “public relations” purposes than for purposes of a precedent. Negotiating a settlement is an implied admission of guilt. Period. While such settlements don't carry quite as much damage as a precedent as would a final verdict from a trial, they are more than adequate stepping-stones for lawyers to have confidence in “piggy-backing” numerous claims on top of this initial case.

Keep in mind that this particular litigation doesn't even scratch the surface on bankster fraud. The “big cons” engineered by Wall Street (and a few of their European 'friends') were in the derivatives market: specifically “credit default swaps” and “interest rate swaps”. While these are two entirely different forms of transactions, they are both essentially Ponzi-schemes attached to mountains of debt.

Each scam had essentially two components attached to it: a short-term fraud, followed by a longer-term 'con' by the banksters. In the credit default swap (CDS) market, CDS's were essentially a fraudulent form of “insurance” allowing borrowers and lenders to pretend that the risk attached to debt (both singularly and collectively) was much lower than it actually was.

The scam was that the parties taking on these CDS's had no capacity to pay, should a default result. We can see how this worked in practice by looking at some of the higher-profile scams to have emerged so far. First, there was the litigation where Citigroup was forced to sue Morgan Stanley to collect on a CDS contract. There was no dispute as to terms – Morgan Stanley simply didn't want to pay.

Looking at the facts, it's easy to understand why. Even after Morgan Stanley liquidated the “collateral” which supposedly backed this contract, it was facing a pay-out of roughly 300:1, compared to the tiny amount it took in as a payment for that contract. This was only a tiny contract: a mere $200 million pay-out. These same contracts have been written up (collectively) to a total of approximately $60 trillion – roughly equal to the entire, global GDP. Sixty trillion dollars of pretend-insurance – which artificially lowered borrowing costs (over the short term) on the basis of this sham-insurance.

The list of “unsophisticated fools” who allowed themselves to be conned by the banksters includes the world's largest insurance company: AIG, along with dozens of sovereign governments. As, regular readers know, AIG has already forked-over tens of billions (of taxpayer dollars) to cover the contracts it was scammed into entering (at least those that we know of). Now the banksters are looking to squeeze trillions of dollars out of the governments who were foolish enough to deal with these vipers (see “U.S. Economic Terrorism the NEW Winning Trade”).

The interest-rate swap scam shares many of the same facts. Again, these were short-term frauds (the “hook”) willingly entered into by borrowers who foolishly thought they could “game” the debt-markets and artificially “lower their borrowing costs”. These parties (which include public institutions and governments all over the world) were even bigger fools than the chumps who “underwrote” the phony CDS insurance.

The chumps entering into interest-rate swaps were essentially entering into a “bet” on future interest rates against the same bankster who wrote up the interest-rate swap contract. The only way that the party entering into the interest rate swap could “win” is if the bankster lost. Apparently these greedy marks either thought they were smarter than the banksters (at their own game) or else must have simply thought that the banksters were “charitable institutions” - who were entering into these losing contracts to subsidize the governments and public entities (like schools and hospitals) who were on the other side of these deals.

In fact, interest-rate swaps were a long-term bankster scam, where their accomplice, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke fraudulently “talked-up” the U.S. market with his ludicrous B.S. of a “Goldilocks economy” - where U.S. house prices, markets, and interest rates would keep going higher and higher – thus duping the chumps to bet against lower interest rates (see “Who were the WINNERS in interest rate swaps?”).

Naturally, the banksters knew that their other Ponzi-scheme: trillions of dollars in worthless “mortgage securities” was about to 'blow-up', and when they aggravated that crisis through 'assassinating' Lehman Brothers, that governments all over the world would have to slash interest rates – and allow the banksters to pocket a trillion, or two, on this one, large scam.

Civil and criminal investigations are now taking place all over the world regarding these huge scams, and when the litigation starts in these areas, the only question which will be in doubt is whether there are enough lawyers/judges/courts to handle this tidal-wave of litigation.

Returning to Goldman Sachs, it's preferred method of scamming chumps was through credit default swaps, while the other “evil twin”: JP Morgan, preferred to do its own scamming via interest rate swaps. Both have committed enough sins in just these two areas to be sued into oblivion (and possibly result in the incarceration of some of these career-criminals).

Of course we can't forget that the Evil Twins also like to engage in regular frauds in the precious metals markets. Once again, like the “book-ends” that they are, Goldman Sachs prefers to do its swindling in the gold market, while JP Morgan prefers to do its cheating in the silver market. While both have (so far) been able to completely escape punishment for their misdeeds in these markets, at least JP Morgan may be about to see its luck run out – as it is now rumored to be the subject of a CFTC investigation.

While precious metals investors would undoubtedly like to see the Evil Twins severely punished for their decades of scamming in precious metals markets, we can all rest easy in the knowledge that there are more than enough “smoking guns” around to constitute a firing-squad. The banksters have made the mistake of “whetting the appetites” of the only hyenas with as voracious an appetite for money as themselves. Ultimately, their bones will be picked-clean.

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