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

[jackwaddington]

It's all becoming obvious that "economics" is meant to keep the 'status quo'. The only way for real change is NOT through legislation (that only maintains the 'status quo'), but through revolution. Wall street cannot change, but it can crash ... again ... and will. Then a real revolution will EVOLVE and maybe then, REAL change.

[Carpevinum]

This is just too much to take anymore. As of this writing there are only 59 comments on this post, but there are almost 1200 on the Meghan McCain piece. HuffPost is a great blog, way too many readers are stuck in check-out counter gossip magazine limbo getting worked up over things that DO NOT MATTER at all. We are being fleeced dwon the toilet and most of the readers would rather get bunched up over nothing more than mindless distractions about Joe the Plumber of all people.. WAKE UP folks....our country is on the ropes and Goldman Sachs is laughing all the way to the bank in shiny new Bentleys.

[writerforhire]

Its the Wall Street pretentious, abusive, arrogant attitude.

[JPHR]

Sociopath might be a better designation, but do you really expect that a free market will ever align corporate interests with the interests of society and its citizens? Popular ideology in the US still seems to adhere to that myth.

[jawkneekat]

When do the citizens of the U.S. finally get fed up with all this looting that is being aided and abetted by our government. I know how angry I am but like everyone else, I'm too busy trying to keep my head above water to march in the streets. Nothing will ever change but it's cute to see everybody in these comments sections get their panties in a bunch!

[MSD61]

I have asked this question many times myself when do we finally get fed up? When 75% of the American people live on the streets? When we all live in tent cities? Waiting in the bread lines??? When? People in this nation are so self absorbed and going about business in their little bubble they surround themselves with that unless they are personally affected by a problem they really do not care about another person's pain.

I also like all this talk about the populous rising up in a French style revolution. Sorry folks that would require real effort. risk and discomfort and as an American I am ashamed to say my countrymen have no stomach to put forth effort or feel any discomfort. That is left up for someone else to do so in my opinion no American's are not mad enough yet at least not enough of them to really make people like the government or GS quake in their shoes.

[iMissMollyIvins]

The only things that will survive the apocalypse will be Keith Richards, cockroaches and Goldman-Sachs.

[RicG]

Including Goldman-Sachs in that sentence is redundant.

[PaiaGirl]

Attributed by some to Mussolini: "Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power."

Sound familiar?

[jjden]

Seems to me that GS and its fellow "too big to fail" financial institutions are doing a corporate version of Bernie Madoff on the US public. (Berrnie should have tried the too big to fail excuse)

W's "administration" simply looked the other way while these greed mongers turned Wall St into little more than a gambling casino. The current administration simply makes soothing cooing noises about "regulation" and the casino plays on.

[mariegachelin]

Why should they care, it is only money that belongs to stupid investors and taxpayers. I just hope they’re generous enough to bail out the food banks that millions of taxpayers, investors, under-employed and unemployed will need because they can't feed themselves as a result of this glorious financial mess that Wall street has created. Politicians seem disconnected with reality and the people that elect to serve. Who's protecting the money collected from taxpayers? Who's ensuring that Wall street does not gamble investor's money?

This country is destroying capitalism.

[zyodei]

Obama's dirty secret is that he is owned by GS.

I've read the analysis a few places, not just Taibbi, that GS will be the largest beneficiary of the Cap and Trade Global Warming "solution" - the the tune of tens to hundreds of billions a year paid by everyone who uses electricity, floating around freshly created Carbon derivatives markets.

"Change" = swapping out the oil guys for the money guys.

[JulieSA]

The oil guys are nothing. The finance guys had a hand in all the bubbles of recent decades, including oil bubbles, and the worst bubble of all, which caused this immense collapse--the housing bubble.

[PaiaGirl]

Yeah, but the bank guys are speculating on oil futures which is what is driving up oil prices. Was it 27 times that a barrel of oil changed hands before someone actually USED it...all speculators moving money and pieces of paper around. Getting rich while we eat it.

[JulieSA]

And I agree with the rest of your comment.

[racetoinfinity]

Goldman Sachs, with the FULL and deliberate (massive) aid of the U.S. government, pulled off the biggest heist of the U.S. treasury
in U.S. history recently, and all they can say is "it's out job to make money." What if making money involved genocide? What if making money involved torture? What if making money caused great suffering for millions of Americans (that one is true of GS)?

The man in London is right; not only do we need public financing of elections and lobbying reform - we have to bust up the big trusts like GS - a return of the progressive spirit of The TR era!

GS is despicable, and the people are getting fed up and ANGRY!

[PaiaGirl]

ditto

[racetoinfinity]

Goldman Sachs, with the FULL and deliberate (massive) aid of the U.S. government, pulled off the biggest heist of the U.S. treasure in U.S. history recently, and all they can say is "it's out job to make money." What if making money involved genocide? What if making money involved torture? What if making money caused great suffering for millions of Americans (that one is true of GS).

The man in London is right; not only do we need public financing of elections and lobbying reform - we have to bust up the big trusts like GB - a return of the progressive spirit of The TR era!

GS is despicable, and the people are getting fed up and ANGRY!

[bobh]

They also don't care because they can make enough in one year to set themselves up for life.

[dobberdoss]

Does the Obama Admin really believe the average US Taxpayer is going to congratulate GS?

[mjtaylor22]

i think they want us to be mad enuff to support massive re regulation, instead of listening to the fear mongering that got us here in the first place...you know the whole you will stifle busieness
they will leave our country if you tax them,
maybe we will be mad enuff to have public opinion stay in the lane of regualte these crooks instead of us tucking tail as soo as the crazy republicans start yelling and spewing fear.........
i remeber what happened to healthcare during the cliton years, we stopped watching and it died on the floor of the house and senate.........t

[researcher]

good for them they are true capitalists

capitalism is about wealth generation not societys needs or wants.

americans want capitalism now they have it and whine about it and blame people for a system failure.

with communism man exploits man with capitalism it is the other way around

these folks know how to exploit american taxpayers and get by with it.

they are not the problem the american voter is

end of lecture. it will go no where as americans love their capitalism like the christians love their bible.

[mikekc]

Masses of idiotic Russians loved Lenin and Stalin even as their countrymen were being murdered. A certain percentage will always cling to authoritarian figures even when it's in direct opposition to their own interests and well-being. This seems to be about 30% of the population. Many will always take the side of whomever can accumulate money or power regardless of consequence.

[jsarets]

With socialism man exploits man and with capitalism it's the other way around.

Communism is a theoretical economic model, the carrot at the end of the stick of socialist dictatorship that has never and will never come about as described by Marx. Many historians believe that communism was just a ploy to win popular support for socialist dictatorship.

Many of Marx's contemporaries, especially Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, spent most of their lives arguing that it is ludicrous to believe that an all-powerful central-planning bureaucracy would suddenly give way to stateless network of decentralized workers councils.

[RoloTomassi]

Perhaps, but never make the mistake of thinking that different forces are at work--they are not different they are the same.

Pure Communism in a vacuum compared to Communism in the actual human mix is a failure due to human failures; the same is true of capitalism and democracy, and for the same reasons.

In the same way a democratic, capitalist state [as self-identified] will always claim success [long after they've devolved into corporatism or fascism], and the same is true of a communist state--as an example, do you think that internally China has declared communism a failure? Of course they haven't; surely they see their current status [which can only been seen as a success when compared to the dire state of the US] as a necessary evolution of communism, in the same way that our deluded corporatists see the current state of US capitlalism and democracy as a necessary evolution of those systems.

Neither are constitutionally or even pragmatically true to the original ideal that was built upon; neither will submit to needed change--regardless of public sentiment--unless they are forced to change.

[WIpatriot]

Well, geez, Mike, if you had a doomsday machine like GS you wouldn't give a flying leap, either.