Even so, many Goldman employees are stunned by the public resentment directed at the bank in general and Mr. Blankfein in particular, who, after first steadfastly defending Goldman's profits and pay, recently offered a vague apology for "mistakes" that led to the financial crisis.
How do you offend us, Goldman Sachs? Let me count the ways:
You get nearly interest-free loans from the Fed at taxpayer expense and then you welch on your end of the deal.
Instead of investing that money to grow the economy you foster predatory lending to our more vulnerable citizens, to feed your derivative gambling.
You pocket fortunes from your unregulated trading games and stick the taxpayers with the losses.
You pay lower tax rates on your 8, 9 and 10 figure incomes than the truck drivers, hairdressers and other middle class Americans who, in a supreme travesty of justice, are forced to subsidize you.
Your lobbyists gut our political rights, cost us and our grandchildren trillions in taxes and debt to subsidize you and, perhaps worst of all, make a mockery of the sacrifices our loved ones and ancestors made to keep us strong and free.
Your PR campaigns and media minions lie to us and foster hate against scapegoats for your iniquities.
To top it all off, many of you subscribe to disgusting ideologies, such as Objectivism and Christianism, that richly deserve to be and, mark my words, will be thrown on the ashheap of history - ideologies that hold you entitled to exploit, cheat, lie to and otherwise abuse the rest of humanity.
The next time you dispatch your armies of lobbyists to Congress, you might as well tell them to take a short detour to Arlington National Cemetary and piss on the graves there.
Trust me, it won't make your offenses any worse than they already are.
Follow Marcella Mroczkowski on Twitter: www.twitter.com/MDMJD
Lulas Rechadas, anyone?
Is it any wonder that when someone has cashed in big time on Wall Street they are said to "Have made a killing"?
The behavior we associate with Goldman is common in many of their peers inside their industry, and it's a behavior pattern that has carried on in the same form for generations in nearly every culture on Earth. This consistency cannot be the result of an accident or of a disorganized group. These people are guided by something.
is that a Freudian slip?
Who at Goldman Sachs subscribes to "Christianism?" That is a pretty weird charge to level at Wall Street.
That said, the vast bulk of the Street as far as I can tell doesn't care about religion at all and certainly is not interested in turning the US into a theocracy.
Jesus threw the money changers out of the temple, not told them to come on in and party
This is simply untrue. The income, including th the bonuses of these bankers, all the way up to Blankfein are taxed at the highest marginal rate - like any other income. You are confusing them with private equity managers who can pay less on carried interest - treating it like capital gains. That is not the case for Goldman's bankers or the vast majority of other professionals on Wall Street.
"Instead of investing that money to grow the economy you foster predatory lending to our more vulnerable citizens, to feed your derivative gambling."
Not sure how you can connect Goldman directly with predatory lending - try focusing on CountryWide.
"You get nearly interest-free loans from the Fed at taxpayer expense and then you welch on your end of the deal."
How do low interest loans from the Fed's discount window cost the taxpayer anything? Really - everyone likes to say this but I'd really like you to explain it, because I am betting you have no idea where that money comes from and how it costs anything to anybody. By the way - the Fed is running a tidy profit right now and it is never taxpayer funded - in fact the Fed funds the taxpayers (actually government).
Warren Buffett's Tax Rate is Lower than His Secretary's, (Income Tax)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cu5B-2LoC4s
TAXES: Warren Buffett - Rich Taxed Too Little, Poor Too Much (Estate Tax)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLD0p1QpcI8&feature=related
There's plenty more where that came from, Friend.
You may want to note that Warren Buffett is an anomaly because he pays himself a $100,000 salary. Much of his income is from investments and they are taxed differently as TheLastWallStreeter was getting at -- he has also donated billions to charity -- which would most likely impact his tax rate.
And Estate Tax is obviously a completely different issue from the one at hand.
(Buffett is complaining about the low tax rate on unearned income from dividends and capital gains where he gets virtually all of his income. Although I am sure some Goldman bankers are doing well on some of their investments, for the vast bulk of them, their earned income, salary and bonus, is the vast majority of their total income, so they would not see anything like the rates Buffett sees.)
The cocktail has killed millions through direct violence or indirectly through famine and disease.
I am glad that a mainstream media let you make this link. As the truth, it should actually be taught in high-schools.
Federal Government spending grew 55% from 2000 to 2008.
Ayn Rand would have been terrified by the government that Bush built.
"We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force. "- Ayn Rand
What turned Goldman-Sachs and the rest of Wall Street loose was a bought-and-paid-for HUGE government that put the financial sector first, policing markets in their favor and providing backstops for their mortgage con with Fannie and Freddie. Government intervention into the credit markets was essential for the creation of the housing bubble.
Victimizing the Borrowers: Predatory Lending's Role in the Subprime Mortgage Crisis, http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=1901
TURNING A BLIND EYE: WALL STREET FINANCE OF PREDATORY LENDING,
Kathleen C. Engel & Patricia A. McCoy, 75 Fordham Law Review 2039, download at
http://law2.fordham.edu/ihtml/page3.ihtml?imac=1137&pubID=500&articleid=2284
If you google this last title you'll find that this article is widely republished and cited as an authoritiative source.
How do you figure?
Oh I know, facts are difficult -- hyperbole is easy.
And of course if that doesn't work there's always off shore accounts... and the Tim Geithner method (just cheat).
So if you were saying that there are people out there paying the same tax rate as these 8,9,10 figure salaries I could agree. But the image she is trying to conjure is of "truck drivers and hairdressers" -- lowered payed Americans that (of course) pay at a lower rate and don't pay AMT.
The author uses the word "incomes" which you can't hide from the gov't (well not for long anyway) and is not going offshore. Also, the loopholes that once existed pre mid 80's don't exist anymore.
Because the wealthiest americans don't earn their money , they don't produce anything, they don't make an income.
They instead "invest" a.k.a. gamble with their money in the stock and bond markets, etc and the money they make off the selling of these stocks etc are called capital gains which are NOT included as income.
The tax rate for capital gains is 15%, the same as a person making around 30k annually.
Then they also get to deduct any losses from their gambling habits and pass some of their losses onto the taxpayers.
I believe Leona Helmsley said it best.
" Only the little people pay taxes."
"You pay lower tax rates on your 8, 9 and 10 figure incomes"
What offends me is all this crap aimed at Goldman Sachs. It so freaking stupid.
And what predatory lending are you talking about? I really need a predatory loan. Tell me which Goldman Sachs phone number to call. I'm looking for a one-million-dollar jumbo, no money down, interest only, no income verification, etc. Appreciate the help.
Brick