Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Resist The Urge To Punish Success ( RE: Goldman Sachs)
Washington Post ^ | Sunday, July 19, 2009 | Mark Gimein

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 ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Editorial
KEYWORDS: bailouts; economy; goldmansachs; greedybastards; punish; punishsuccess; wallstreet
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-8081-84 next last
To: Jacquerie

I would highly reccommend you read the article linked to in post 4 and get back to us.


21 posted on 07/20/2009 2:12:41 PM PDT by dirtboy
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies]

To: dirtboy

$3.5 billion sure is a lot of quarterly profit. Would $1 billion satiate your rage?


22 posted on 07/20/2009 2:33:40 PM PDT by Jacquerie (That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: Jacquerie
$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.

23 posted on 07/20/2009 2:36:08 PM PDT by dirtboy
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 22 | View Replies]

To: dirtboy

If simple, direct questions anger you, you are at the wrong forum. There are other sites more suitable to your demeanor.


24 posted on 07/20/2009 2:43:49 PM PDT by Jacquerie (That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies]

To: Jacquerie
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.

25 posted on 07/20/2009 2:46:08 PM PDT by dirtboy
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 24 | View Replies]

To: JasonC

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?


26 posted on 07/20/2009 2:48:52 PM PDT by mike70
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

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.


27 posted on 07/20/2009 2:50:58 PM PDT by swarthyguy (MEAT, the new tobacco. Your right to eat meat ends where my planetary ecosystem begins.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: dirtboy

So how much profit is appropriate? Just asking.


28 posted on 07/20/2009 2:51:26 PM PDT by Jacquerie (That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 25 | View Replies]

Comment #29 Removed by Moderator

Comment #30 Removed by Moderator

To: Jacquerie
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?

31 posted on 07/20/2009 2:55:57 PM PDT by dirtboy
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 28 | View Replies]

To: Jacquerie

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.


32 posted on 07/20/2009 3:00:24 PM PDT by nkycincinnatikid
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies]

To: nkycincinnatikid
Nonsense, AIG paying up netted them about what they earned in one quarter, only.

Any lie is considered acceptable if the target is a rich financier or firm. Why? Because hatred of capitalism is rampant.

33 posted on 07/20/2009 3:04:21 PM PDT by JasonC
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]

To: nkycincinnatikid

If it was a stupid question, why did you answer it yourself?


34 posted on 07/20/2009 3:07:05 PM PDT by Jacquerie (That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 32 | View Replies]

To: mike70
No. It is simply used to route block trades efficiently, to move a market price as little as possible while filling the order. People trying to move a lot of stock don't want the price to move a bunch before they are done making the trade.

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.

35 posted on 07/20/2009 3:07:38 PM PDT by JasonC
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 26 | View Replies]

To: JasonC
Nonsense, AIG paying up netted them about what they earned in one quarter, only.

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.

36 posted on 07/20/2009 3:11:22 PM PDT by dirtboy
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 33 | View Replies]

To: dirtboy
People who own them money paying them those debts as contracted is not "stealing". Welshing on a debt and walking away from it is stealing. There is no right to be a deadbeat enshrined in the constitution, populists to the contrary notwithstanding. Meanwhile, back in reality, Goldman pays $6 billion a year in corporate income tax. Every year. Its employees pay several times that in personal income taxes. Everyone else in the entire economy is free-riding off productive financiers, not the reverse.
37 posted on 07/20/2009 3:11:44 PM PDT by JasonC
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 18 | View Replies]

To: Jacquerie
If it was a stupid question, why did you answer it yourself?

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?

38 posted on 07/20/2009 3:12:57 PM PDT by dirtboy
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 34 | View Replies]

To: dirtboy
Of course you hate capitalism, you wouldn't know it if it smacked you upside the head.

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.

39 posted on 07/20/2009 3:13:34 PM PDT by JasonC
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 36 | View Replies]

To: Jacquerie

Because I was told that there actually aren’t any stupid questions, just stupid questioners. So I indulged y’all.


40 posted on 07/20/2009 3:16:45 PM PDT by nkycincinnatikid
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 34 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-8081-84 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson