Goldman Sachs are scum, …

3 Comments

1. 

   Steven D on July 19, 2009 at 11:00 am

   Wall Street always hedges its bets,  A lot of Democrats were given money last election.

2. 

   dada on July 19, 2009 at 6:47 pm

   krugman agrees with max, especially about the need to reform the system. from his 16 july column in the nyt, The Joy of Sachs

   The American economy remains in dire straits, with one worker in six unemployed or underemployed. Yet Goldman Sachs just reported record quarterly profits — and it’s preparing to hand out huge bonuses, comparable to what it was paying before the crisis. What does this contrast tell us?

   First, it tells us that Goldman is very good at what it does. Unfortunately, what it does is bad for America.

   Second, it shows that Wall Street’s bad habits — above all, the system of compensation that helped cause the financial crisis — have not gone away.

   Third, it shows that by rescuing the financial system without reforming it, Washington has done nothing to protect us from a new crisis, and, in fact, has made another crisis more likely.
   …

   Goldman’s role in the financialization of America was similar to that of other players, except for one thing: Goldman didn’t believe its own hype. Other banks invested heavily in the same toxic waste they were selling to the public at large. Goldman, famously, made a lot of money selling securities backed by subprime mortgages — then made a lot more money by selling mortgage-backed securities short, just before their value crashed. All of this was perfectly legal, but the net effect was that Goldman made profits by playing the rest of us for suckers.
   …

   The bottom line is that Goldman’s blowout quarter is good news for Goldman and the people who work there. It’s good news for financial superstars in general, whose paychecks are rapidly climbing back to precrisis levels. But it’s bad news for almost everyone else.

   it’s extortion, pure and simple…and l didn’t see any notice of a windfall profit accruing to the taxpayer as a result of their brilliant gamesmanship…did you?

   the foxes aren’t just guarding the chicken coop, they own it.

3. 

   Real History Lisa on July 20, 2009 at 8:00 pm

   If we want things to get better, we’re all going to have to be able to defend the word “socialism.”

   I was at a party this weekend, and one of the women there was a doctor who had been raised in Canada. She used the “S” word quite liberally, and defended it fantastically, turning the argument back against those who would defend a system that bred only corruption and inequality. I wished she was running for office!