Tim Price puts things in perspective, and includes an extended quote from Doug Noland's excellent Credit Bubble Bulletin.
"I have no problem with the staff of Goldman Sachs earning millions...I have no problem with their clannish, hubristic, insular culture, having never wanted to work for the Moonies.
My main problem with Goldman Sachs is that if it operated like any other business in the world, when it and its business model effectively failed in 2008 it should have been allowed to fail properly, and closed down. But that is not what happened.
Despite self-serving articles like that from Nader Mousavizadeh in this weekend‘s FT ('[the bank] navigated the crisis with far greater skill and discipline than its rivals (and at a far lower cost to taxpayers'), the reality is that Goldman Sachs was almost certainly just as bust as Lehman Brothers in those dark days of 2008. The difference is that Lehman Brothers wasn‘t allowed to convert itself into a bank holding company and borrow emergency funds directly from the Federal Reserve. Goldman was, despite not being a bank in any conventional sense of the word. But that is only to be expected, given that Goldman Sachs and its alumni have managed to infiltrate themselves into every branch of the US administration...
When you look at Taibbi‘s original article, the more recent criticism voiced by...former Goldman employee Greg Smith (readable here) is a vicarage tea party by comparison.
But as I say, I have no problem with Goldman Sachs per se, other than that it shouldn‘t exist, or that it displays the uniquely biddable qualities of US government: everybody, every policy, everything is for sale at the right price...
Tim Price, Muppets 1, Gollums 0
PFP Wealth Management
19 March 2012
Working hard and being smart does not bother anyone. It is the lying, cheating, and stealing, that is most disturbing, especially when it involves corrupting the fundamental processes of the nation like the banking system and the money supply.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what is commonly known as corporatism, à la mode Américaine.
From what I can tell money corruption was taken from a long standing but largely personal, almost petty, retail political sideline into a well-organized, wholesale, industrial scale art form by the Clintons and, given the current climate of campaign funding wherein it has proved so successful at raising enormous funds, that it has become increasingly en vogue, if not de rigueur.
In times of general corruption, when one is dancing they all must keep dancing, whether bankers or pols, until the music stops.
Read the rest here.
