Financiers and Sex Trafficking

Financiers and Sex Trafficking

www.nytimes.com

THE biggest forum for sex trafficking of under-age girls in the United States appears to be a Web site...[owned by] an opaque private company called Village Voice Media. Until now it has been unclear who the ultimate owners are. That mystery is solved. The owners turn out to include private equity financiers, including Goldman Sachs with a 16 percent stake. 

(visit the link for the full news article)

Goldman Sachs are top contenders for the position of the world's biggest skkkumbags in a purely business sense - something even most non-Goldman capitalists can agree on. Add sex trafficking to their enormous list of moral and legal crimes.

The immense immiseration of women and girls caused by these smirking pinstriped criminals is a crime that goes beyond mere greed. It exposes their psychopathy and utterly amoral mindset (as if tha wasn't already clear). If you were to create a storybook villain it would be hard to attribute all this evil to a single actor in a way that the reader could swallow. But truth is stranger than fiction.

In a just society these pigs would be castrated. Slowly, using a dull straight-razor frosted with rocksalt.

www.nytimes.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

After my last column on this issue, 19 U.S. senators wrote the company, asking it to stop abetting traffickers. On Thursday, antitrafficking campaigners protested outside the Village Voice newspaper (which is owned by Village Voice Media). A petition on Change.org criticizing the company has gathered 220,000 signatures.

In Washington State, the governor signed a bill into law on Thursday that could expose Backpage to criminal sanctions if it advertises under-age girls for sex without verifying their ages. (There’s some uncertainty about the constitutionality of the law.)

Hopefully this continues to get attention and expose the hypocrisy of these power whores. 16% ownership is significant enough not only to support the crimes, but to help stop the destruction and/or promotion of it too. I bet most investors were unaware of their ties to this, but sadly a part of me thinks many would not care either

Let’s be clear: this is a tiny investment by a huge company, and I have no reason to think that Goldman’s top executives knew of its connection to sex trafficking. Goldman prides itself on its work on gender:

spec

someone beat ya to it

Alright, is Goldman ball sacks gonna burn down now in smoldering cinder? Or are they just going to get away with it throwing cash to the allegation?

reply to post by Jordan River


think that's a dumb question. not trying to be a smartarse, either...seriously....we all know that they'll get away with it...

The immense immiseration of women and girls caused by these smirking pinstriped criminals is a crime that goes beyond mere greed. It exposes their psychopathy and utterly amoral mindset (as if tha wasn't already clear).

Just wait a sec. Great headline, but after looking at this a little more I noticed that this is really the same thing as craigslist. And, the ads for prostitutes or escorts are posted by the people either independently, or whoever is forcing them into the trade.

reply to post by ICEKOHLD


According to the T&C a story may be posted once in in breaking news and once elsewhere.

I suggest reaading the rules before taking it upon yourself to enforce them as a freelance mod.

reply to post by boncho

Let’s back up for a moment. There’s no doubt that many escort ads on Backpage are placed by consenting adults. But it’s equally clear that Backpage plays a major role in the trafficking of minors or women who are coerced. In one recent case in New York City, prosecutors say that a 15-year-old girl was drugged, tied up, raped and sold to johns through Backpage and other sites.

This part is frowned upon though I am sure.
I'd do some digging on the site but don't want any underage perv flags to go up.
Even if Backpage is just the 'vehicle' for such violations, they still are guilty imo. Apparently the site is well known for underage sex slave solicitation.

reply to post by speculativeoptimist


Yes, if it's being used as a portal for those things it has to be addressed. But I don't see it as a bunch of bankers sitting in a room thinking up nefarious ways to support child trafficking. The people that need to be stopped are the pimps that are putting these girls through this with violence or other means.

This already was an issue with Craiglist. And will always be an issue until prostitution is treated as a social issue rather than a criminal issue.

reply to post by boncho

But I don't see it as a bunch of bankers sitting in a room thinking up nefarious ways to support child trafficking

Perhaps not, but I do see it as a bunch of banker powerhouse individuals seeking to quench their perverted lust for such things, the end product more than the how, and maybe not all of them, but likely some. Perhaps your insinuation is right, in that it is not just GSachs the company mostly responsible, but i am still glad the investors were made aware of this.

But I am one who believes there are those(some) in power that indulge in things like ritual sacrifice, child molestation and other deplorable acts.
So I say attempting to expose the money and support systems are doing good, and yes, the pimps of underage kids certainly need to be dealt with.

Unfortunately, I'm unable to access the OP link to the NY Times article. However, I did take a quick look at Village Voice Media, LLC. Interestingly, it owns numerous ventures, other than Backpage. These include several newspapers, including....... are you ready for this...... the NY Times.

Like I said, I wasn't able to read the story, but this makes me suspicious of why they would choose to single out a 16% shareholder in a company with so many ventures, other than one which is a website to which anyone can post.

Sounds like quite a stretch to me, on the surface.

Cum Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc

reply to post by WTFover

why they would choose to single out a 16% shareholder

That's a good question, and maybe it is because they are calling out an outfit of such prominence and influence.
I had to click the link a couple of times also, because at first it said I had to sign in, but later the article came up.
www.nytimes.com...

reply to post by Leftist


My first thought: Holy Shut the Door!!! My second thought: No surprise. This just confirms that the sex trafficking market is more profitable than the money markets. And tells us who the buyers are. And says a lot about our world.

I think I'll go make something pretty. Just to balance out the energies, ya know?

Originally posted by speculativeoptimist
That's a good question, and maybe it is because they are calling out an outfit of such prominence and influence.

Or, maybe it's due to an agenda. Just seems a little suspicious to me. I'm curious, does the article provide info on what percentage of Village Voice Media's income is generated by Backpage? In other words, if it is even say 25%, that would mean Goldman Sachs (for whom I have no particular interest, by the way) only has a 4% stake in Backpage. Or, so logic would say.

Originally posted by soficrow
And tells us who the buyers are.

Who would that be?

reply to post by WTFover

Additional perspective:

Backpage has 70 percent of the market for prostitution ads, according to AIM Group, a trade organization.

Village Voice Media makes some effort to screen out ads placed by traffickers and to alert authorities to abuses, but neither law enforcement officials nor antitrafficking organizations are much impressed. As a result, pressure is growing on the company to drop escort ads.

After my last column on this issue, 19 U.S. senators wrote the company, asking it to stop abetting traffickers. On Thursday, antitrafficking campaigners protested outside the Village Voice newspaper (which is owned by Village Voice Media). A petition on Change.org criticizing the company has gathered 220,000 signatures.

In Washington State, the governor signed a bill into law on Thursday that could expose Backpage to criminal sanctions if it advertises under-age girls for sex without verifying their ages. (There’s some uncertainty about the constitutionality of the law.)

Village Voice Media has been able to resist pressure partly because, as a private company, it doesn’t disclose its owners. But I’ve obtained documents that, with some digging, shed light on who’s behind it.

The two biggest owners are Jim Larkin and Michael Lacey, the managers of the company, and they seem to own about half of the shares. The best known of the other owners is Goldman Sachs, which invested in the company in 2000 (before Backpage became a part of Village Voice Media in a 2006 merger).

reply to post by WTFover

Originally posted by WTFover

Originally posted by soficrow
And tells us who the buyers are.

Who would that be?

Themselves, their buddies and investors silly.

It's how the world works.

I am so glad this is being exposed and I am hoping for some really big arrests, unlike David Wilcocks talks that either don't happen or it seems the wrong people are getting fingered, I want the big ones, and to have this go all the way back to the Rothchilds/Rockefellers/Royal Families would be the best news of all. I want all arrested and the world freed.

The elite are the worst pedophiles and sex freaks on the planet.

Since there is no sense of humanity in them; everything is sick and unnatural.

Why anyone looks up to these people is beyond me.