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The Rage Over Goldman Sachs
Time ^ | 08/26/2009 | William Cohan

Posted on 08/26/2009 4:55:11 AM PDT by fiscon1

Lloyd Blankfein, the 54-year-old chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs, is powerfully perplexed. In the past six months, his investment-banking and securities-trading firm has roared ahead in profitability by taking risks — that other firms would not — for itself and its clients in an edgy market. It has paid back the billions of dollars, and then some, of taxpayer money the government forced it to take last October; raised billions of dollars in capital from private investors, including $5 billion from Warren Buffett; and urged its cadre of well-paid and high-performing executives to show some restraint on the conspicuous-consumption front.

(Excerpt) Read more at time.com ...


TOPICS: Government
KEYWORDS: goldman; goldmansachs; obama; paulsen
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1 posted on 08/26/2009 4:55:11 AM PDT by fiscon1
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To: fiscon1
Lloyd Blankfein, the 54-year-old chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs, is powerfully perplexed. In the past six months, his investment-banking and securities-trading firm has roared ahead in profitability by taking risks — that other firms would not — for itself and its clients in an edgy market.

The perception is that, in high risk/reward investments that they make, Goldman takes almost all the reward, and the US taxpayer takes almost all the risk. In other words, the game is rigged, so it shouldn't be shocking that people are resentful.

2 posted on 08/26/2009 5:08:46 AM PDT by rightwingcrazy
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To: fiscon1

If GS didn’t want the public’s ire, it should have not participated in fascism.


3 posted on 08/26/2009 5:16:30 AM PDT by mysterio
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To: fiscon1

There Russian software programmer in jail for allegedly stealing GS software that he worked on. The U.S. Attorney said his possession (or his agents is Russia) was a threat because the software could be used to manipulate the markets.


4 posted on 08/26/2009 5:17:45 AM PDT by Frantzie (Lou Dobbs - American Hero! Bill O'Reilly = Liar)
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To: rightwingcrazy
The perception is that, in high risk/reward investments that they make, Goldman takes almost all the reward, and the US taxpayer takes almost all the risk.

Yup...very familiar...the economics of Mussolini's fascist regime...

"In actual fact, it is the State, i.e. the taxpayer, who has become responsible to private enterprise. In Fascist Italy the State pays for the blunders of private enterprise. As long as business was good, profit remained to private initiative. When the depression came, the Government added the loss to the tax-payer's burden. Profit is private and individual. Loss is public and social."
--Under the Axe of Fascism, by Gaetano Salvemini, p. 416 (1936).
Note that big business, not small business, got Mussolini's bailouts, too, such that bankers and investment houses made off with taxpayer money.
5 posted on 08/26/2009 5:21:44 AM PDT by Gondring (Paul Revere would have been flamed as a naysayer troll and told to go back to Boston.)
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To: rightwingcrazy

Maybe it’s easier to take high risks when you get private one-on-one counseling sessions with the Treasury Secretary who happens to be a former CEO who happens to have a heavy personal stake in the company’s success, along with every other $6000 suit-wearing stiff in his inner circle

Just sayin’.


6 posted on 08/26/2009 5:25:14 AM PDT by silverleaf (If we are astroturf, why are the democrats trying to mow us?)
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To: Frantzie

Yes, it’s interesting that the FBI should immediately act to protect GS’s market-manipulating software from “theft” by another trader.


7 posted on 08/26/2009 5:26:42 AM PDT by silverleaf (If we are astroturf, why are the democrats trying to mow us?)
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To: fiscon1; mysterio; Gondring; silverleaf

http://www.modernhistoryproject.org/mhp/NewsDisplay.php?Entity=BlankfeinLC&Date=2009-06-26

http://www.modernhistoryproject.org/mhp/NewsDisplay.php?Entity=BlankfeinLC&Date=2009-07-01

A mass conspiracy, if you will. Organized crime, indeed.


8 posted on 08/26/2009 5:32:30 AM PDT by wolfcreek (KMTEXASA!)
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To: wolfcreek

What’s with the anti-Jewish stuff in those links?


9 posted on 08/26/2009 5:37:03 AM PDT by mysterio
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To: Gondring

Sounds a lot like crony socialism. Not a formula for national prosperity, in any case.


10 posted on 08/26/2009 5:37:46 AM PDT by rightwingcrazy
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To: wolfcreek

I don’t disagree. It’s the first article to defend GS so I thought that was interesting.


11 posted on 08/26/2009 5:40:48 AM PDT by fiscon1
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To: fiscon1

may as well throw this into the mix:

http://market-ticker.denninger.net/archives/1364-America-Is-Running-Out-Of-Rope.html


12 posted on 08/26/2009 5:51:24 AM PDT by snuffy smiff (the only good commie is a dead commie)
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To: mysterio

Exposing these criminals who hide behind their *supposed* religions. They don’t give a crap about Israel or the Jewish people.

http://www.rense.com/general83/13h.htm


13 posted on 08/26/2009 5:59:25 AM PDT by wolfcreek (KMTEXASA!)
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To: fiscon1

If you notices, there’s been a lot of *praise* floating around DC. Especially for Bernanke and the Fed.

All Lies!


14 posted on 08/26/2009 6:02:15 AM PDT by wolfcreek (KMTEXASA!)
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To: mysterio
If GS didn’t want the public’s ire, it should have not participated in fascism.

Roger that.

15 posted on 08/26/2009 6:06:18 AM PDT by OB1kNOb (Extreme right-winged mob terrorist astroturfing bitter clinging racist birther evilmongering wingnut)
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To: fiscon1
"The fact of the matter is, we already had the collateral," Blankfein says. "If AIG had defaulted, guess what — we would have kept the collateral from AIG and from the banks we'd bought protection from. The government's decision to bail out AIG was about the risks to the system. It wasn't about Goldman Sachs."

What collateral from AIG? "Securitized" mortgages? And without the bailouts, it's not obvious that those "banks we'd bought protection from" would have paid off either.

16 posted on 08/26/2009 6:30:22 AM PDT by ding_dong_daddy_from_dumas (Obama's multi- trillion dollar agenda would be a "man caused disaster")
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To: wolfcreek
We need a leader and congresscritters who are committed to investigating the globalist movers and shakers involved in this economic crash and it's power structure. We need people who are actually beholden to the rule of law and to America to take power and get to the bottom of all this.

I was not happy with your link to Rense, wolfcreek. This dark thing we are dealing with is not merely Jewish nor is it Jewish in root or nature. It is all of the same root and it is neither Jewish nor Christian. Useful idiots of all “tribes” in the world are defending it and propping it up.

17 posted on 08/26/2009 6:34:11 AM PDT by SaraJohnson
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To: fiscon1

GS is trying to figure out how to pay huge bonuses this year without calling them bonuses. It knows its image is as low as it can go. Wonder what the payoff to Time was for running this defense.


18 posted on 08/26/2009 6:39:52 AM PDT by Brugmansian
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To: wolfcreek
There certainly is a lot of Jewish influence in the current administration. Look at the leadership/funding for many of the radical left organizations working with Obama.

How about the recent $2B loan to Petrobras for off shore drilling? This doesn't pass the smell test since George Soros is a major stock holder in Petrobras.

However we are not supposed to talk about these facts since it is not PC to do so.

19 posted on 08/26/2009 7:14:30 AM PDT by Wahoo82
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To: SaraJohnson
“I was not happy with your link to Rense, wolfcreek”

If you read the whole article, you would know he repeated what you said about the evil coming from all sections of civilization.

He also stated these people are using religion and it's followers to mask their real intentions.

Wasn't trying to paint with a broad stroke but, it's hard to get ones point across without insulting someone. BTW: the author is an ethnic Jew.

20 posted on 08/26/2009 11:24:17 AM PDT by wolfcreek (KMTEXASA!)
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