The bit about the role Goldman and maybe other banks have played in the Greek debacle is just fascinating:
Greece has suffered from large deficits for years, and until now it seemed as if big banks would always be there to bail it out. As far back as 2000 and 2001, Goldman helped Athens quietly borrow […]

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Taibbi’s latest, in Rolling Stone. Makes me want to cry:
It isn’t so much that we have inadequate rules or incompetent regulators, although both of these things are certainly true. The real problem is that it doesn’t matter what regulations are in place if the people running the economy are rip-off artists. The system assumes a […]

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Taibbi has a great one up today, taking apart David Brooks’ attempted takedown of populism brick by brick - and hitting upon a very disturbing truth in the process:
That’s basically Brooks’s entire argument here. Yes, the rich and powerful do rig the game in their own favor, and yes, they are guilty of “excesses” — but […]

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Had caught part of this earlier in the week, the statements by the banksters at the opening of the “Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission,” during which the likes of Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase did their best deer-in-the-headlights routine and said - actually said! - that no one gave a thought to the possibility that housing prices […]

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Employees of Goldman Sachs have apparently taken to carrying weapons in order to protect themselves from any unruly populist types.
Dunno why. The unruly populist types are all bent out of shape at government, not Goldman.

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Good piece by Maureen Dowd:
The saying used to be, whatever happens, the lawyers win. Now, it’s whatever happens, the bankers win.
Under pressure from regulators, who were trying to ensure that long-term performance was rewarded, the banks agreed to award more in stock, deferring cash payments.
But as The Times reported this week, the Goldman executives who […]

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Simply unbelievable.
Employees of Goldman, the Fed, Citigroup, and other banks are getting H1N1 vaccine allotments out of proportion to what can be justified from a public health standpoint. In particular, Goldman has gotten more than Lenox HIll hospital, which needs it not just for the sick but more important, for workers
Update: More, from Reuters:
New York City […]

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Greed is love, and taking is sharing.
And Jesus would have loved Goldman Sachs!

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Dean Baker:

McClatchy Does Its HomeWork on Goldman Sachs
They have some good investigative work here, here, and here. If Fox went over Goldman with the same energy it pursued Acorn, no one in Congress would go within a mile of its lobbyists.
But Fox won’t go after Goldman, because Fox is ideologically committed to free markets, which […]

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The world according to Goldman Sachs.

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Unbelievable.
A Goldman Sachs International adviser defended compensation in the finance industry as his company plans a near-record year for pay, saying the spending will help boost the economy.
“We have to tolerate the inequality as a way to achieve greater prosperity and opportunity for all,” Brian Griffiths, who was a special adviser to former British Prime […]

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But of course.

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Shocked, I’m shocked!
Well no, I’m not shocked:
For Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, an embarrassment of riches has turned into embarrassing riches.
Goldman’s bonus pool is expected to swell to an estimated $16 billion after what’s expected to be another stellar quarter, and Blankfein is struggling to figure out how to pay his employees in a way […]

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Via Matt Taibbi, this one I simply can-not-believe:

GOLDMAN Sachs boss Lloyd Blankfein has warned his employees to avoid high-profile spending, as The Post reported — but his wife evidently didn’t get the memo.
Laura Blankfein and her friend Susan Friedman, wife of another Goldman honcho, Richard Friedman, caused a huge scene at Super Saturday in the […]

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Funny. Matt Taibbi with a definitive takedown of a particularly vapid “defense” of Goldman Sachs:
It’s not that Goldman cooked its first-quarter profit numbers, or was using a computer program that by its own admission could be used to manipulate the New York Stock Exchange, or that it got a special waiver for the entirety of […]

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Ah, Goldman Sachs:
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. ratcheted up risk-taking to an all-time high in the second quarter, increasing equity bets 58 percent to amass record trading revenue and quarterly earnings.
Value-at-risk, a measure of how much money the firm could lose in a day’s trading, rose to $245 million from $240 million in the first quarter, […]

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Via Matt Taibbi (whose latest takedown you should read here): This is called “saying what you think.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSwWy4E6I04

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Krugman. Read it:
Over the past generation — ever since the banking deregulation of the Reagan years — the U.S. economy has been “financialized.” The business of moving money around, of slicing, dicing and repackaging financial claims, has soared in importance compared with the actual production of useful stuff. The sector officially labeled “securities, commodity contracts […]

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Goldman Tuesday here at Smart Remarks, but you know what? It needs to be.
This is Elliot Spitzer on Goldman, asking the key question around the 2:00 mark - the U.S. government/taxpayer - that would be you - has pumped billions into the financial system. Is it generating any jobs? And if it does not - shouldn’t […]

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From U.S. News and World Report, on why we should cheer Goldman’s big earnings:
And it’s hardly Goldman’s fault that it has benefited from programs meant to … benefit the financial sector. …
<snip>
Goldman and a few other AIG trading partners got a sweetheart deal on that bailout, but once again, the government was offering it. So […]

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