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Exposing The Story Behind Goldman's Record Profits - Part 2: The Role Of The Taxpayer
Do Goldman employees deserve any compensation, much less the $16 billion paid out in salaries and bonuses in 2009 when one considers that the firm would not only have no money to pay, but would be defunct had the US taxpayer not stepped in and bailed them out? Should this money have been used to prepay the firm's $20 billion TLGP exposure instead, thus truly making the firm independent of taxpayer support, instead of just claims to Goldman's public funding independence? Will the wave of public anger, now that President Obama has suddenly and inexplicably done a 180 degree turn and sides with the middle-class instead of the financial executives, take Goldman down at the next black swan occurrence? Is Goldman hypocritical in claiming it did not need a bailout after it rushed to become a bank holding company? Is Goldman a doomed business model which relies solely on the existence of the "greater fool" to sell to? Will its monopolist and ever-larger dominant status result in an implosion in the financial industry (especially with the DOJ continuing to deny there is any anti-trust problem)? All these questions and more seek answers in the just released Part Two of the PBS series "Is taxpayer money behind profits at Goldman Sachs."
We recommend watching Part One of the PBS series in advance of the clip below.
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Look they have managed to pull it off so far--they have their peeps (formers and wannabees) at every single level of the government including staff of the Treasury, Fed even the Senate Banking Committee. So its like "who is gonna make me". Who indeed?
Will the wave of public anger...take Goldman down at the next black swan occurrence?
Yes. "Jump, You Fuckers."
So this is what a balanced, just, nondiscriminatory, egalitarian society looks like, huh? These two videos make it plainly obvious to even *me* what a goddam outrage all of this really is.
Thank you PBS. I'm sharing it.
PBS is WAY behind the curve, because Bama just did ANOTHER 180 and is siding with the bankers who deserve those bonuses.
Well, to be charitable to PBS, following Obama's outrages and what not is like driving the autobahn at 120 mph, subject to many hairpin turns and doubling back. Such is the case when you try to follow a man without a functional moral compass.
The basic brokerage model....
1) Take companies public
2) Make commissions
3) Manage money
4) Advisory
.............................
In 1977....Merrill Lynch started to pay straight commissions.....and started the "conflict of interest" in that salesman could only make money when they sold something....
Secondly...salesmen got paid a lot more to sell risky stuff versus not so risky stuff....
The ECNs came along and eliminated the commissions game on stocks.....but what the brokers lost out on in stocks....they made up for it big time by selling vaguely priced debt derivatives....a whole new game....most all of it in the shadow banking category.....
And guess what...
IT BLEW UP !!!!!
...............................
So now what should happen ?
The securities industry needs to look like this....
A retail person logs on to there computer....
They can pull up fact based information on any security type....
They would pay no more than 20 cents per hundred units to transact any of the securities units....
The exchange would be defragmented....and seamlessly worldwide....
There would be no dark pools or outside matching of any kind....
The exchange would be fully electronic direct access....
Brokers could not manage money or be in conflict with its customers....
Brokers should be in the business of bringing companies public...and supplying wiki style fact based information....
Brokers should strive to make all aspects of securities transactions more and more efficient....
Banks should be separated from the securities business....
.................................
When this parasite is finally plucked from the buttocks of the US economy and violently stomped by the host, it will be a day worthy of a public holiday.
The Bernanke Fed has to go to. This guy is stealing billions in interest payments due responsible savers every year by funneling cheap gambling funds to the banks.
However, I went to a Wal Mart in a north eastern state today, and there is really NO hope that the average person is ever going to come close to understanding just how they are getting robbed day in and day out. Decades of propaganda and shit television has completely brainwashed these poor souls.
THIS IS THE TRUEST COMMENT ON THIS SITE I HAVE EVER READ. AMEN STEVENYC.
"THIS IS THE TRUEST COMMENT ON THIS SITE I HAVE EVER READ. AMEN STEVENYC."
I absolutely second that, Anony.
"Decades of propaganda and shit television has completely brainwashed these poor souls."
That is what social control and oligarchy is all about, Charlie Brown.
I'm pretty naive, what are you talking about getting ripped off at the cheapest store in the U.S.?
In the eighties, I managed an $80 million consumer products division. We raised our prices that year (we'd held them the prior year). Walmart demanded that we roll back our price increase to conform with their "same as last year prices" lest they not carry the product. Consumer friendly I guess you could say. We said screw you and took the revenue hit. However, many companies complied. How many companies did Walmart drive to China for outsourced manufacturing so that they could promote everyday low prices over the years? I'd be willing to bet quite a few, though I couldn't prove it. Then, as a consultant for some rather large companies, I saw Walmart do an end run around branded US companies that had been forced to outsource to remain competitive and produce their own product in China/Asia. Walmart ripped off U.S. design and slapped defunct US brands that they had purchased the rights to onto the product to compete with their own US branded vendors. Walmart and Wall St. with their beat the quarter mentality were big participants in screwing our manufacturing base and ultimately middle class jobs IMHO.
Wu Ying -- nabobess sentenced to death for defrauding
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2009-12/24/content_9225428.htm#name9
The Treasury is working on new rules that will stop banks from draining millions of dollars in fees from the Social Security benefits of elderly clients.
This WSJ article was taken down, any of you ZH'rs have a copy?57
I freakin hate pundits, talking heads, whatever you want to call them. And I especially hate Macke. Fratboy traders will be the first punished in the NWO, bc they are front line, and STILL don't see it coming!
I think Macke is broke now. Notice how they said former hedge fund manager. He was kissing up for a job.
Sounds like it....
http://tinyurl.com/yc6tscy
I agree. No one in their right mind (even Macke) who has any business opportunity left on Wall St. will be willing to criticize GS on national TV.
ACTUALLY THEY SAID "ADVISOR" BUT NONE THE LESS...AGREE. WHAT IS ABSOLUTELY STUNNING, IS THAT MACKE WAS THE PERMA BEAR ON FASTMONEY IN 2008 AND NOTHING HAS CHANGED, AND TO SEE HIM NOW, POST MELTDOWN ('CARGUYS' MELTDOWN) DEFENDING THE INDEFENDABLE IS F-ING INSANE .......................................
More info: http://www.topix.net/redir/loc=prss-myway/http=3A=2F=2F...
I guess the reporter caught him right after his therapy session ended?
Jeff Macke has an epiphany and realises that he knows nothing then creates one of the finest pieces of performance art this century.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIPq5zxv4E0
Funny right? How come everyone I know that works down there are all frat-boys? Additionally, they all have degrees in something as worthless* as their job function.
*Jealously - Simply put. Not for the money, but for their jobs.
Yeah, he's a dickhead. Pretty boisterous in retrospect, now knowing what he was going through during his twilight on Fast Money. I especially enjoyed the fact that I bought LVS at $1.72 when he and Cramer were yelling sell. Thanks for the new house boys and thank you for playing.
"Will its monopolist and ever-larger dominant status result in an implosion in the financial industry..."
The history of rogue trading is as old as the modern markets themselves as illustrated by Nathan Rothschild's famed head fake play in 1815 which virtually "bought" the nation state of England in a single stroke of calculated deception. The questions raised in the above article beg the larger question of the economic system itself -- for the act of shadow trading has been around for some time as an apparent inseparable twin to the modern "system" of economy.
As each brick was placed upon a theme of interest bearing debt magnification, man's animal instincts were compelled into greater development as a course of mere survival. As any astute student of macro finance will concur; the times of deflation or debt accumulation past the ability to service this debt become in reality a time of a "negative sum" game -- not a zero sum game but a "negative sum" game. Far more units of exchange are being taken out of the system than can be put in at any one time.
The average mode of adaptation to this very real environment is to become more cunning and animalistic in one's endeavors or become one of the plankton in the undertow of the receding wave of credit contraction. In many environments this gradual descent/ascent into aggressive and manipulative behavior is seen as "good sense" and within areas of "group think" will actually be termed: skillful and proficient to be rewarded handsomely. Our highly polarized (sports based) paradigm actually cheers such things on as societal validations -- we are filled from the time of youth with adversarial concepts which are rewarded and encouraged...
If a child is left to be raised by wolves what other can become of their personality than to become "wolf like?" Its nature's way; as conquering one's environment AS IT IS can be termed "proficient activity." So, who's to blame those who have followed on centuries of development for their shadow system of proficient activity? "Its a jungle out there - all you can do is become the tiger..." But is that jungle a product of human choice over time? Does it of itself have any reason for being or did humans come along and tweak it to be such?
The crucial adjustment would seem to occur within the individual as they judiciously scan "their works" in relation to their actual happiness and attempt to surmise if indeed the high road has been found in such proficient activity. Many find such a path to be a venture of completely diminished ability to be satisfied and they thus "grind on" through life with an accompanying deep inner feeling of disconnect and un-accomplishment. Is their state of affairs not to be pitied as if looking at a beggar on a street corner? Are they not within the bounds of a restlessness which has no end? Are they not merely a product of centuries of collective conceptions thrust upon them at no fault of their own, based upon a drunken pool of systemic aberrations termed: "the debt based/interest bearing system of economy?" Were not our ancestors living for eons within the confines of their own collective shadow notions which merely added to the debasement of all humanity? Such questions as above allude to the question back of that: are such things the "cause" or the "effect" of the greater collective paradigm existent?
As all debt based monetary systems go through a time of leverage unwinding and credit contraction it is the very playing field itself which gives cause to such "shadow proficiency" in all its infamy. As debt becomes greater than the ability to service it even with minimum payments, a type of general hypnosis enfolds itself upon the system at large. Either one fights for position or they fold the tent and endure the oncoming of lack. As the negative sum game gets up to speed it becomes apparent that one gains at the expense of many others and the tendency is to finger point at the one atop the pile of poker chips as somehow being more ruthless and vile. Yet, the very basis of exchange is so created as to drape all participants into the pool of ever draining water -- a negative sum game! Conversely, when the system is in a time of credit expansion and the pool is filling up -- there are no so called "bad guys" for a positive sum system is in expression.
The wise individual/thinker/trader will note this swing of the times and position accordingly. Information becomes as it always was -- by far -- the greatest asset to obtain.
One backs off an agitated level of criticism and instead harnesses the ability to see truth amongst the wreckage of deception and game playing which covers the field from goal post to goal post as an expression of the collective conceptions back of it -- and acts under calm and awake volition as conditions warrant. Jesse Livermore was a stern advocate for following one's own inner instincts and was careful to remind the trader of the tendency for accepting "tips" and various diversions from others.
Thus the greatest of all possible balancing agents for times when the pool is draining and the water line is descending are collectives such as Zero Hedge where the leading lines of fact can be seen well over the horizon before the big one eyed huckster/s can so mangle these facts on their centuries old auto-pilot directive to position information to the general detriment of "most traders/thinkers/individuals..."
GS is a machine built upon the long history of parting people with their units of exchange -- the awakening of the true game is like a new day and we can all look on as the sensible minds of the majority of people cast their radiant awareness onto the shadows of the dens which at long last are open to curious eyes and ears as the searing white light of simple truth penetrates in its own way and so alters the quantum reality as it appears before us.
The sensible life coach will always fall back on the principle which shows through experience: that to totally SEE an iniquity drains it of its power to perpetuate further. As quantum entanglement also shows; nothing is separate from anything else and pure awareness just might be the greatest of all curative agents known for the eventual betterment of Life on this fair planet where hard working people should be able to store and transfer units of exchange via effort in a safe and simple manner.
Zero Hedge ~ The Leading Edge ~ of Knowing the Ledge
Beautiful and fascinating post - thank you. I wish you weren't anonymous so I could make sure to read your posts in the future.
Good Lord Man, well done.
Why hide a simple & self-evident concept under a load of pretentious crap?
"quantum reality/entanglement", "paradigm", "life coach"?
Gimme a frickin' break. Are you working on your dissertation or what?
I gonna go watch the Daytona 500.
Beautiful. The "searing light of truth" as you put it, or "pure awareness", "pure consciousness", that which we all have the ability to attain, is the method by which all lies, deception, fears, facades etc. are punctured and dispelled like the ghosts that they are.
The Buddhist undertones are very well used and understood. Congratulations sir.
Modern democracy is somewhat changed from the original Greek conception. Back then, the slaves knew their master and the master was responsible for his (no her) slaves. The master cared for his slaves as valued property.
The genius of today's method of slavery is that no master is directly responsible for his slaves.
Egalitarian "society" is a bill of goods sold to slaves to enable them to see themselves as free people, and therefore to pay their own carrying costs.
Fundamentaly, there are no rights, only capabilities. Over time, the capabilities of competing interests formed boundaries of interaction that were call rights and written down on worthless paper. Capabilities change.
Slaves require Sparticus types to lead them.
Put the lime in the coconut, and drink it all up.
40muleteam borax
.
Greece outlaws ALL cash transactions over 1500 Euros...
...and so it begins:
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2010/02/greece-outlaws-cash-t...
.
following this douchebag's (George Papandreou) logic will lead directly to the requirement of "the mark of the beast"
Forcing everyone to use credit/debit cards? Interesting.
"Is Goldman a doomed business model which relies solely on the existence of the "greater fool" to sell to?"
Is that ever a doomed business model? The bubble and especially the "bust" have convinced me that the supply of stupidity is limitless at every level of society or government.
Headline
Detroit schools offer class in how to work at Walmarthttp://rawstory.com/2010/02/detroit-schools-offer-class-work-walmart/
Done a 180??? He was just quoted all over the world as kissing Jamie and Lord Blankfein's dicks!!! re: their bonuses.
What 180?? You meant 360, right?
GS...they make money the old fashioned way: they steal it.
What scum.When will it end?
Hey, can anybody link to ZH's response to GS' response to ZH?
Hey, can anybody link to ZH's response to GS' response to ZH's questions?
hey can anyone learn to use the search function?
guess they don't teach you that at SocGen
Bernanke is no better than a common thief. He has stolen my interest income for the last 2 years and given it to wealthy bankers. Hanging is too good for the creep.
PBS is late to the game, but its good they at least are catching up to what many of us here already knew. Goldman Sachs is the Dantes Inferno of Wallstreet. The Devil that control everything. Warren Buffett has sold out his soul to Goldman the Devil.
What do you think Goldman does when Buffett decides to buy into a company or buy a company? Goldman is first in line to be buying right beside Buffett. Thats why Buffett is considered a genius. Its like that old commercial about Smith Barney. When Smith Barney talks everyone listens. Well Buffett is the Smith Barney of Wallstreet. You can bet Goldman was loading up with Burlington Northern stock prior to Buffett making his move. Goldman got the inside info.
Goldman is now being acussed by some of helping the Greece government hide their hugh debts. Perhaps Goldman will ask the Federal Reserve to bail out the Greeks. After all its Gods duty to bail out the Gods of Greece.
You guys on ZH are screwing up the trademark value!
Damn! Since when did Macke start selling his ass out for the man?!?!? He drooled so much onto Blankfein's knob in that interview, Maralyn Chambers would have blushed!
So long as there are people like Leo out there, susceptible to the bogus praise tossed to them by Blankfein during the hearings ("sophisticated professionals"), Goldman's business will prosper. PT Barnum was right.
Wasn't it Menken that said “No one in this world, so far as I know has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people”
To which Barnum quote were you referring
Okay, we all know about this now.
What is going to change? Nothing, I'm guessing.
Do you ever get the feeling there are things going on we don't know about? I do believe they are a part private, part governmental organization that works on behalf of itself and the government. Why did they ever take themselves public and thereby be forced to make some of their activities public?
Wow... http://www.topix.net/redir/loc=prss-myway/http=3A=2F=2F...
Goldman Sachs has become Obama's Blackwater. If they don't break up Goldman Sachs and make them pay for all the government assistance they've gotten they will guarantee losing the White House. No Democrat or Independent will vote for someone who has let Goldman get away with everything they've done.
>> Should this money have been used to prepay the firm's $20 billion TLGP exposure instead
This is the essence of it. As long As Goldman is depending on any form of public loanns or guarantees in excess of plain FDIC insurance, it should absolutely not be allowed to keep or pay out any profits at all.
Hank Paulson screwed the public by being horribly lenient with the bailout terms.
It was not the bailout itself that was wrong, it was the corrupt terms under which it was conducted.
Why do people always refer to the bank bailouts as the "taxpayer lending the banks money"?
I didnt lend shit. 1000-1 calls to congress telling the banks to fuck off and die and yet we "lent" these fucktards money.
I look forward to the march on 85 Broad
Barking up the wrong tree. They're non-callable. That's why.
Read this and just ponder for a second how very, very deep this rabbit hole goes.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/14/business/global/14debt.html?hp
As far as I can tell, GS is simply untouchable.
The scoundrels of wall street:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/14/business/global/14debt.html
The Big One is coming soon, bigger than the 2000 dot-com crash and the 2008 subprime credit meltdown combined. A huge market blowout.The Big Crash is Coming...."debt bomb" Explosion
The Sunday Times and this weeks Der Spiegel both ran stories on Goldman helping those Greek idiots to hide their true fiscal picture by off balance sheet,(tier 3 sound familiar) currency swaps. Goldman got airport and lottery rights for the transaction. As Goldman pumped coke into the veins of Greece's drug induced balance sheet, I am sure they hedged with CDS 's.
It is akin to a drug dealer pleading innocent. "Hey, they have an addiction problem, I just provide the drugs.. Leave me alone, I give a cut of my profits to charity".
and that's why everyone wants to work there
you can break the law while using the us tax payer as a back stop
hope and change
I'll let you know if they deserve their bonuses after I get hired and collect my bonus.
Or as Bill Muny said in 'Unforgiven', "Deserves got nothin' to do with it".
So far the Vampire Squid has commited the perfect crime. And unlike drug cartels or the mob they don't have to worry about the government prosecuting them for their crimes since the government is driving the get away car.
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