We Don't Care. We Don't Have To Care. We're Goldman Sachs.

Goldman Sachs has openly, blatantly gone back to business as usual, knowing they will be bailed out by taxpayers if their high rolling gambles don't work, and they don't care who knows about it.

The reason they can be so breathtakingly arrogant, so stunningly cavalier about not giving a damn about things that any other company's PR and government relations department would advise them against, is that they know they have the power to do anything they want to do. The Obama White House needs to take Goldman Sachs to the woodshed rhetorically, and they should have the Justice Department investigating them for anti-trust violations and all manner of stock manipulation. It is time to start squeezing the management at Goldman, and making them nervous about being broken up into pieces that are not too big to fail.

Here's (with brief intro) Matt Taibbi, Rob Johnson, and myself taking about Goldman Sachs on what is rapidly becoming my favorite media program for discussing economic issues, GRITtv:

Comments

[Kassandra]

so simple; the bill is already there; just reinstate Glass/Stegal the Republican Congress did away with during the impeachment of Clinton.

[Lynnce]

wrong Clinton repealed it:
http://www.progressivehistorians.com/2007/11/bill-clintons-role-in-mortgage-crisis.html

[bighat]

Does the goldman sachs actions really surprise anyone? We are just hearing about GS because of their arrognace. How about the other wall streeters and the banks. Are they acting any different than GS other than bragging. How about AIG; they are giving the big bonuses again but they want the money czar's backing to prevent a public backlash. Is that not the height of arrogance.

Why did we bailout these companies and ensure the salaries of senior mgt. We were told that if we did not bailout these companies unemployment woud rise to 9%. It has now exceeded 9%.

Who is advising Obama? Who is telling the president that these companies are too big to fail. Is it part of the president's advisors. Lobbyists? Who?

The american citizen seems to be paying the price for Obama's mistakes. We are told the weatlhy will be on the hook to pay for America's needs. Does anyone really believe all the talk of the wealthy paying in increased taxes. What loopholes have been created in the legislation? Somehow I do not thnk the senior mgt of the bailed out companies along with Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Mayor Bloomberg, Nancy Pelosi and John Kerry will be carrying the burden.

We have all assumed that republicans were the friends of big business. Have we been wrong?

[cvwilson]

Given their recent profits, it is obvious that Goldman Sachs has made it through the crisis. It is also obvious that with the loss of Lehman Brothers and other competitors that Goldman's market share is now way too big. It is time for some anit-trust action against them to break them up into four or five pieces. Forget about Geithner and Summers, get Eric Holder to work on this.

[bighat]

What can Eric Holder do? We gave GS billions because they were among the companies too big to fail. Then we are going to prosecute them because they are too big. Not to mention they will be using tax payer money to defend themselves. This whole episode sounds like a lawyers dream.

lawyers do not create wealth or jobs

Best thing we could do is pull all govt backiing and assurances

BTW who decided Lehman brothers and others were not worth saving and Goldman Sachs is.

Did Lehman not pay enough lobbyists or were the lobbyists of GS just that much better at playing the game.

[omegapoint]

http://dailybail.com/home/there-are-no-words-to-describe-the-following-part-ii.html?lastPage=true#comment4852484

Nothing else matters. Everything else is a distraction from this. Our government has been taken over and proof is that noone is going after GS bonuses the way they did AIG bonuses. Our treasury secretaries have given away the treasury the way Marcos left The Phlipines with their money. Ron Paul has a bill pending that would audit the FED something that they don't seem to think they have to
do ...and its never been done. The above website will reveal the extent and open eyes ...jump on.

[Jannsmoor]

Either we write and telephone our government and force them to take action, or we'll be bled white by the Wall Street Profiteers. Goldman made a bunch of money selling mortgage backed securities that they convinced the rating agencies needed to be rated AAA. Realizing the free lunch could not go on forever, Goldman then bet that the securities they sold would go down in value, and again made a bunch of money.
They made a bunch of money off the taxpayer by getting cheap money from the government, some from FDIC and some from the Fed.
Now they have made a bunch of money on trading. As the economy melted down (which they helped cause) the cost of loans has skyrocketed and the difference between the bid and ask price for securities has also skyrocketed. Whereas before the meltdown, Goldman might make $100 million off the spread, now they are making over $1 billion.
All of which is bad for main street. Pension funds bought the toxic assets, Goldman profited. When the assets crashed, Goldman had insurance which AIG paid (taxpayers paid), and Goldman profited. Now, the cost of money and trading has skyrocketed, Goldman again has profited. Finance has taken over this country. It makes more money than any other industry. Meanwhile, what does main street get for all the cost? Really, almost nothing.

[islandsox]

But there's too many of them in Obama's Administration. It started with Paulson and now, I believe, there are six in the administration. So maybe Obama and Geithner are keeping their enemies closer by having them in the Admin and Treasury. Just saying.

[DenisElliott]

"A lawyer can steal more with a briefcase than a thousand men with guns." (Don Corleone, The Godfather)

Replace tlawyer with Wall St. player (lots of them are lawyers!) and there you have it. We haven't used the term "privatize profits and socialize losse"s nearly enough lately. Of course, when so many (including Democrats) are part of the revolving door between govt. and Wall St., we shouldn't be surprised. We have to tell the administration we put in place know we won't tolerate a de facto continuation of "trickle down economics.­" The President said many times the way to grow our economy is from the bottom up. That's not what we're seeing. I want him to publicly say that until Goldman and others that got federal money pays back every dime, then no more bonuses - and their top officers can't make more he does & their people can't "earn" more than 200K!

When railing against the size of govt. and taxes, conservatives like to shout "it's your money." For once I agree with them. All that bailout money that's going to obscene salaries and bonuses IS our money. Goldman might have paid back their TARP money, but they've still gotten over 50 billion from the taxpayers and the President needs to keep saying it publicly, and privately tell Geitner to slap the crap out of his buddies at Goldman and the rest of Wall St. and FIRE him if he can't whip them in line.

[abqsmallbiz]

Never mind the woodshed, kick 'em to the curb. Isn't too much enough yet?

[Kaborka]

That's why it's good to be King of the World...

[ijgibson]

If I sold you my neighbours car (ie one I didn't own) I'd - quite correctly - be prosecuted for fraud. If - as a bank I lend my customers money I don't have - that's OK ?

The problem is simple - all the big name bankers - who forgot they were running banks with other peoples money and thought they were casino managers - should have been = and still should be prosecuted, convicted and gaoled. That's the proper result for fraudsters of all kinds.

While we stand by and allow them to carry on, and even support their gambling with taxpayers money - we deserve what we get !

[abqsmallbiz]

I commented that we should kick 'em to the curb. For you, we should kick 'em to the kerb. Or maybe they've served up Madoff as their symbolic scapegoat, and he's doing time for the whole gang's crime.
I don't think anyone is going to do anything about Goldman Sachs as long as they have connections, like Geithner, so well placed in the administration. What do you propose "we" do? We were promised an end to lobbyists.­..I'd like to see the influence peddlers taken out of the equation and THEN the DOJ can get to work on busting trusts and prosecuting felons.

[Eggsackley]

There will be no end to lobbyists, earmarks, and other crapola without constitutional amendments. Both parties are in bed with special interests. One amendment I would propose is a line item budget veto for the president. That would give him the power to cut out crap like the Congress forcing the Defense Department to buy f-22's they din not want or need.

[Rudy Haugeneder]

Corporate welfare bums continue to rule America.
Simply put, U.S. corporate socialism allows that Goldman Sachs to "openly, blatantly gone back to business as usual, knowing they will be bailed out by taxpayers if their high rolling gambles don't work, and they don't care who knows about it."
Worse yet, the U.S. military, CIA, and municipal and federal police departments, including the FBI, will destroy anyone who tries to change this.
But even worse yet, the U.S., Canadian, European, Israeli, and British taxpayers don't know -- or care to get informed -- about how Goldman Sachs is robbing them blind.
So, if you don't care to examine the issue, don't complain. It's only your money and you don't deserve to keep it and deserve to be little more than a modern slave.

[Kassandra]

All true. Slavery is baaaackkk

[Eraser]

Well, the next time they go bottom up, they should write another bill as they expect for a bailout.

But this time the text of the bill should be the lyrics for Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone".

[kamact]

If you steal a loft of bread on main street, you go to jail for years.

However, if you recklessly destroy millions and trillions of dollars of value and, in turn, trigger a downward spiral in employment, home values and sales, and the value of equities held in millions of 401k accounts, and thus undermine the financial security for millions of Americans, you get to keep your job in these financial firms, continue to get oversize bonuses, and have the money to buy distressed assets for pennies on the dollar....­further concentrating wealth. And our federal government will aid you on both sides of the trade.

I am of the opinion that our Federal politicians and "too big to fail" bankers are underestimating populace anger that can easily erupt into destructive acts targeted to disrupt their security and dreams.

Perhaps the best approach for compensating executives in these “too-big-to-fail” financial firms and for getting the toxic assets off their balance sheets, as well as, enhancing the credit markets, is to have all managers and above in these financial institutions be compensated using these toxic assets. This provides numerous other benefits, such as:
- Reconnecting risks with rewards – This minimizes the moral hazard issue and need for corporate socialism;
- Enhancing corporate governance, especially enhancing employees’ vigilance to risk management; and,
- Price discovery – There will be an interesting dynamic between institutional price points and employee price points


Kamact, a capitalist who believes in regulation, but not trickle-down

[janye]

Perhaps it should be "One strike and you're out." That is, a company can recieve bailout money only one time.

[festusok]

Oil instruments, such as futures are not in and of themselves bad things. It is a way for both producers and users to protect themselves from market volatility. It allows them to plan ahead. In point of fact, most producers, companies like Anadarko, and others are REQUIRED in there corporate policies to hedge forward a significant chunk of their gas production. Sometimes they win, some times they lose. Having said that,
Where things went wrong: It was figured out decades ago, with the appearance of the Mercantile futures market for oil, they "outsiders" could play the refining game without ever even seeing a refinery, much less and oil well. That was well and fine as long as they were private partnerships, playing with their own money. However, when GS, JPM and Lehman went public, they understood that they could still make enormous amounts of money for themselves, while shifting all of the RISK on to the public (the shareholders). Of course, they did hold some of the stock themselves, but that is more for appearances than substance.

So, the situation we have today: It s a coin toss:
Heads Goldman wins, tails, the public loses.

[LloydG]

Well, considering the obscene pay packages that have been slowly and steadily introduced in to the culture of the CEO class over the past 15 - 20 years, these numbers do not surprise anyone. These people have consistently lined their pockets with enormous wealth and have toppled the economy of this great Nation. A yearly salary of just a paltry million dollars (a total embarassment for these guys) yields a weekly gross paycheck of over $19,000. Certainly one could live a nice (not a fantasy) lifestyle with that kind of dough.

Figure in tax loopholes (even Leona said "only the little people pay taxes"), the fact that only the first 90 or so thousand dollars is taxed for social security (an outrage considering these guys who take home 40 or 50 million per year could certainly pay 1 or 2% on the balance after the 90,000) and you have a sector of society who robs you "without a gun". Everything now is about certain individuals making obscene amounts of money and not always following the laws of the land.

It is beyond comprehension to think that US banks gave sub-prime mortgages to vulnerable Americans, causing so much suffering amongst American families and children. And then the credit card companies jumped in and yanked their fees up. Wall Street playing the games we have all been recently made aware of. Where does it stop? .


. WHY ARE WE SO AFRAID TO EVICT THESE CEO CRIMINALS FROM THEIR VARIOUS MANSIONS AND