CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- The Goliath of Wall Street, Goldman Sachs, was accused of monumental fraud Friday. The Securities & Exchange Commission filed civil charges saying the huge firm rooked investors out of nearly $1 billion through flimsy packets of dubious mortgages.

Shrewd Wall Street financiers become billionaires by manipulating pieces of paper. Greed is their only motive. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., remarked Friday that such operators "knowingly sold junk products and, as a result, helped cause the worst recession since the 1930s."

Here's another classic example:

The county surrounding Birmingham, Ala., was sucked into insolvency and government layoffs by scummy Wall Street bonding schemes. More than 20 local politicians have been convicted. The sordid story is outlined in the latest Rolling Stone magazine, as follows:

"Birmingham became the poster child for a new kind of giant-scale financial fraud, one that would threaten the financial stability not only of cities and counties all across America, but even those of entire countries like Greece," the report by Matt Taibbi says.

It began because the Cahaba River through Birmingham was polluted by sewage. Jefferson County officials decided to build modern sewer lines and treatment plants, at an estimated cost of $250 million.

"But in a wondrous demonstration of the possibilities of small-town graft and contract-padding, the price tag quickly swelled to more than $3 billion," the article says. "County commissioners were literally pocketing wads of cash from builders and engineers and other contractors eager to get in on the project, while the county was forced to borrow obscene sums to pay for the rapidly spiraling costs."

Wall Street firms gleefully took enormous fees for selling bonds to finance the sewers -- then took more fees to refinance the debt through mind-boggling methods.

JP Morgan Chase paid Goldman Sachs $3 million to stay out of the Birmingham deal. Morgan banker Charles LeCroy funneled millions to Bill Blount, "an Alabama wheeler-dealer with close friends on the county commission." Blount did no work for Morgan, but he showered the Morgan money on local politicians such as Birmingham Mayor Larry Langford. Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers also paid fat fees to Alabama insiders.

Eventually, 23 refinancing shuffles occurred -- before the whole financial mess collapsed. "Between 2008 and 2009, the annual payment on Jefferson County's debt jumped from $53 million to a whopping $636 million," Rolling Stone relates. ". . . On a sewer project that was originally supposed to cost $250 million, the county now owed a total of $1.28 billion just in interest and fees on the debt."

Local government was forced almost to a standstill. Mass layoffs of county employees occurred. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged JP Morgan Chase with fraud. The firm paid a $25 million fine, plus $50 million to help laid-off Alabamans, and also wrote off $647 million it might have collected. Mayor Langford drew a 15-year prison term for taking $240,000 in bribes. Influence-peddler Blount got four years in a cell. Banker LeCroy was jailed for a previous scam in Philadelphia.

This nightmare is a warning to every city or county tempted to plunge into a costly bonding scheme.

Every politician wants to build elegant community projects -- but no politician wants to raise taxes to pay for them. Instead, they sell bonds, hiding the immediate cost of the effort, deferring repayment to future years, leaving the next administration stuck with the tab.

Birmingham's disaster shows evil that moneychangers can cause. Rolling Stone concludes: "The banks just pay a small fine and move on to the next scam. This isn't capitalism. It's nomadic thievery."