Posted on 07/20/2009 12:21:49 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Money can't buy love? For proof, look no further than Goldman Sachs. Last week, the firm reported a spectacular quarterly profit -- close to $3.5 billion for the bank and about $385,000 in compensation for each employee for the first half of the year -- and right on cue, the braying began for the heads of the Goldmanites. Earlier this month, Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi, in a comprehensive exercise in conspiracy mongering, primed the pump of outrage with his article "The Great American Bubble Machine." Now a chorus of supporters has chimed in, shocked that in a recession the evil Goldman could turn such profit.
The rhetoric of outrage has come full circle: Before, the villains were the banks that were stupid and greedy enough to fail; now the villains are those -- a small club, basically just Goldman and J.P. Morgan Chase -- that have been smart and greedy enough to succeed.
What began as an effort to keep the financial industry from repeating its mistakes has turned into, as at other points in history, an attack on the idea of trading profit. It is no longer enough that the banks should be reformed; the opportunity to make this kind of profit should be eliminated.
This now-fashionable line of attack is badly misguided. Goldman and J.P. Morgan are reaping great rewards as the last firms standing in a game in which everyone else has been cowed or crushed. Yes, they're able to do that partly because the government has kept the financial system afloat. (Would anyone really prefer that it had not?) But the essence of the outcry is that we must punish Goldman for having been right. This is a mistake.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
******************************************EXCERPT******************************
Goldman-haters like to weave a narrative that connects the dots between Goldmanites and former Goldmanites who are supposed to rule the world in a one-degree-of-Goldman Sachs fashion.
What was that quote from the Rolling Stone article last week...??
“If the economy is circling the drain, Goldman Sachs will figure out a way to profit from being the pipe...”
Or words to that effect....
Considering that Goldman, Morgan Stanley and their alumni in government played a major role in creating the inferno on the first place, as far as I’m concerned, to some extent they are now getting insurance payments for fires they helped start.
rebuttal to this article here http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2296829/posts
We don’t want to “punish Goldman for having been right”, we want to punish them for manipulating the system for profit and stealing taxpayers money.
Smart??? Didn't Ayn Rand have a phrase "the aristocracy of pull"? Or to put it in terms of Chicago politics, the aristocracy of clout?
resist the urge to punish success??
since when has this been policy at the POST?
When it is a criminal enterprise that owns the TOTUS?
Well the Wash comPost can perfectly legally sell access to “non governmental” institutions like Goldman Sucks.
That was my thought....always suspicious of the Post...and the NY Times.
Goldman and J.P. Morgan executives have earned the same reward given to Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker.
The GOP needs to embrace Ron Paul and run against Goldman Sachs like the RATs ran against Halliburton. Join GS and the DNC at the hip and run against them as ONE enemy. We will sweep the 2010 elections.
The financial industry pays one fifth of all US taxes, alone.
“Resist The Urge To Punish Success”
RATS think NOT giving things to the poor is “punishing” them, yet they dont consider it punishment to take things away from people who earn it.
This article is such BS. Goldman Sachs, that branch of the DNC, made profit because they stole American taxpayer money. This is what we call crony capitalism.
Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi’s great article is a must read for every thinking American.
(about 10% of the population).
Come on wall street, isn’t the ephithet “liar” a little extreme?
‘specially if you consider that without the intervention of the government to protect them from catastrophic losses they had so cunningly insured against with worthless scraps of AIG paper Goldman would be bankrupt today?
They got $13 billion from the fed bailout of AIG, made possible by former GS Chairman Paulsen.
Face it, it's all intertwined and corrupt, and you are one of the few pom-pom wavers left on FR for this level of goverment/Wall Street/Fed corruption.
How much profit do you think GS should be limited to?
What they can earn without massive government intervention, and without setting up the bowling pins for another financial meltdown.
I would highly reccommend you read the article linked to in post 4 and get back to us.
$3.5 billion sure is a lot of quarterly profit. Would $1 billion satiate your rage?
$13 billion of government bailout dwarfs it all, jackass.
If simple, direct questions anger you, you are at the wrong forum. There are other sites more suitable to your demeanor.
Simple, direct questions don't bother me. Weasels who overlook the fact that GS got $13 billion in bailout money via AIG do.
There were some recent articles on a theft of GS trading code. One story reported (excerpt):
“because of the way this software interfaces with the various markets and exchanges, the bank has warned it could be used to “manipulate markets in unfair ways”
From: http://www.cnbc.com/id/31783285.
My question is: How do they know the software can be used to manipulate the market in unfair ways? And does this have any relationship to their $6.8 billion in second quarter trading profits?
1. This guy has friends or relatives @ GS hence he’s carrying water for them. A shill, a mouthpiece. That’s to be polite, I should call him a simple whore, but that would be insulting to whores who can and do provide pleasure, however transient. GS just screws America and doesn’t even bother asking if it was good for us, too.
2. If I got a few billion from the goobers, I could be highly successful too.
GS employees should be thankful they ain’t hanging from lamp posts or adorning the trees of Central Park.
So how much profit is appropriate? Just asking.
And once again, I answered you.
So here are some questions to you - do YOU have a problem with the fact that GS got $13 billion in AIG bailout money? And that their former chairman was the architect of that bailout? Do you think AIG would be posting a $3.5 billion profit now without that bailout money? Do you have a problem with such an incestuous relationship between the Treasury Secretary and a financial firm?
First of all, I think that is a very stupid and irrelevant question.
Secondly Goldman Sucks is a taxpayer charity, what kind of profits are other charities limited to?
OK, the same then.
Any lie is considered acceptable if the target is a rich financier or firm. Why? Because hatred of capitalism is rampant.
If it was a stupid question, why did you answer it yourself?
If someone doesn't care how much money they lose they can reverse the objective and trade as dumb as possible to move a market as much as possible for the amount sold. They'd hurt themselves but would also destabilize the market they traded in.
Ah, so what's $13 billion between cronies?
Any lie is considered acceptable if the target is a rich financier or firm. Why? Because hatred of capitalism is rampant.
I don't hate capitalism. I applaud and admire the businessman who gets rich running a business that does not require billions from taxpayers to stay afloat because of greedy, stupid decisions.
I instead despise the current symbiotic and self-serving relationship between the likes of GS and politicians. It reeketh of facism and taxpayer ripoffs.
And I also despise the cheerleaders who cannot tell (or does not want to discern) the difference between the two.
Why don't you try something remotely resembling debate, instead of yammering like a drunken parrot? Why don't you answer at least some of the questions I asked in #31? Or are they just too inconvenient for your opinions?
And it is the US government and treasury that requires billions stolen from profitable finance every year to pay for all its middle class entitlement boondoggles to the ungrateful populist rubes on mainstreet, not the reverse.
Because I was told that there actually aren’t any stupid questions, just stupid questioners. So I indulged y’all.
Once again, the former chair of GS arranged the AIG bailout. That netted $13 billion in taxpayer funds to GS. The federal government assurances to cover the CDS obligations by AIG did not exist at the time GS purchased such. This was not Congress making the FDIC whole to meet obligations to depositors at the time the deposits were made. GS used CDSs to increase their leverage without making sure AIG could cover them. In other words, GS made a ton of money without doing their homework to properly cover the risk, but then had their sugar daddy in Treasury cover their butts when that went south. As the saying, privatizing profits and publicizing losses. That is not capitalism, that is fascism.
For you to even TRY to rationalize such as anything but theft from the taxpayer at the point of goverment power confirms my opinion of you as a craven apologist for all the carnage these pinheads wrought upon the economy and the taxpayers.
This from a guy who rationalizes billions in goverment bailouts to GS via AIG - government guarantees that did not exist at the time GS purchased the credit default swaps. Methinks I understand capitalism just fine - under capitalism, GS would have eaten the $13 billion in losses because they failed to properly account for risk - that IS what capitalism is about, risk versus reward. What you are shilling for is fascism, where the well-connected run to the taxpayer when their schemese go south. Fascism, which is what you have a tingle down your leg for, apparently.
You may have the last word, for what little it is worth.
I asked a simple question. You answered that GS should make the profit of a no profit. Do you work for the government?
No, AIG did not pay them the money. The American taxpayer gave AIG the money to meet those obligations. And former GS chair Paulsen arranged the deal - AIG just became a passthru from the taxpayer to AIG - the AIG securities were not guaranteed by the taxpayer at the time they were issued. That ain't capitalism, it is crony fascism. True to form, you omit what brackets the AIG bailout - the interests of GS and the power of GS to force the taxpayer to cover the risks they failed to properly anticipate and research. Fascist freak.
No I did not, you lying weasel. I said this:
What they can earn without massive government intervention, and without setting up the bowling pins for another financial meltdown.
AIG's profit now is largely a result of the bailout money they have gotten.
Now, answer my questions. Or shut the flock up. Dishonest and disingenuous posters are the worst.
Let me know if you ever suspect you have deep thought.
Such unnecessary venom in response to a simple question. $3.5 billion is too much profit. What is just right?
Since they accepted so much money, do your feelings tell you that GS should lose money? Would that make you feel better?
The treasury was smart to prevent a messy default by AIG, since it would have cost the treasury far more than recapitalizing the company. Your one entry accounting fallacy pretends the treasury would have spent nothing if it had let AIG fail as messily as Lehman, but that is a pipe dream. Being against bailouts for 72 hours cost the authorities $2 trillion by the following Friday. Runs are much more expensive than anything "saved" by forcing debts to not be paid instead of seeing to it that they are paid.
Underlying your entire ideology is the notion that debtors have the right if not the duty to stiff they creditors, that creditors exist to be robbed blind, and that the height of policy is for the authorities to connive at robbing them as much as possible. Simultaneously you expect the treasury to milk financiers of hundreds of billions a year to pay for anything but support of finance.
This is stuff and nonsense, start to finish. The treasury is not a god above the fray but one modest player in the thick of it, and if it lets creditors get smashed, it gets stuck with every bill there is. You can't allocate debts beyond capitals economy wide, and you can't confiscate all financial capital either, since it performs an absolutely necessary social function that enforces its returns by natural economic law. All you can do is decide which hat you are wearing when you pay for the services of capital. And the longer you delay it and the more grudging it is, the more everyone pays.
Intelligent men at the treasury and Fed saw all of this, though not before screwing the pooch on Lehman in exactly the manner you are advocating, and seeing it blow up in their face immediately. They were pragmatic enough to reverse course when not paying $60 billion cost them $2 trillion within a week. Lacking all practical responsibilities, you pretend that you can oppose the costs as well, but it is poppycock. (If banks fail, the FDIC fails, then the treasury fails).
None of it had anything to do with GS or the interests of GS, it had to do with the US treasury and the interests of the US treasury. Which are not "pay out nothing", because it is already contractually obligated to pay for many things, and because wrecking the economy it owns 20% of is not a way to keep it afloat. The interests of the US treasury and of GS and other financiers simply happen to coincide, and you don't like it. Tough toenails.
None of it is your money anyway. Everything spent to support finance, directly or indirectly, since the country was founded, wouldn't make a dent in the vast sum milked from productive financiers by unproductive drones in Washington, year in and year out. But you never even acknowledge this. You treat it as a birthright - capital exists for you to rob.
Well, no, it doesn't, and it can and will defend itself against the depredations of organized deadbeats. Suck it up.
Incidentally, you are free to join them in all of this at any time, making any pretence than any of it oppresses you in the slightest utterly laughable.
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