Comment by roundsquare | Hacker News Reader

Comment by roundsquare | Hacker News Reader

Not getting into what I think of the conclusions of this article...

I really hate articles like this. There is nothing specifically stated to back up the conclusion. Give specific actions taken by Goldman and show why that exploted people.

Secondly, even if some groups within Goldman did do this, its a vast oversimplification to say "Godlman Sachs Is Robbing Us Blind." I know, its hard to get very nuanced in an article like this, but at least state which divisions of Goldman did this. A lot of groups in Goldman are not structuring products. Some of them are facilitating trade of other companies, some are just buying and selling stock, some of them are doing economic research, etc...

An article like this is meant to provoke anger, and thats fine. Without getting people really mad, nothing will ever change (I mean this in a broader context as well, not just with respect to Goldman). If a large power financial institution is truly using dishonest methods to rob us, we should figure out what to do. I just wish there was some reference to a cold hard fact, a link to further reading which wasn't just the article itself on the huffington post or something to allow people to make an informed decision.

Ah well.

Edit: Spelling, a few additions.

I'm not a finance guy, but I think this is a better article on the subject: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/29127316/the_grea...

Wow, there sure were plenty of facts in that one. If even a substantial fraction of what's in that article is true, Goldman Sachs is purely, objectively evil. And there's probably nothing we can do about it.

We tend to think of Obama as the anti-thesis of the Bush years and policies, but he is in lock step with the Bush and Clinton administrations in his deferral of all financial decisions to Goldman Sachs and their alums.

Yes, that article is mind blowing. Unfortunately it was published in Rolling Stone, meaning that there's a large portion of the country that would refuse to read if given the chance as well as some who wouldn't believe it if they did. As far as the Obama comment is concerned, he is lockstep with the Bush admin on more than just financial policy, he's also followed their lead on torture, search and seizure etc. The emperor truly has no clothes. (I feel that I should actually be posting this on Reddit...)

Not so sure about that, Matt Taibbi is pretty well known for being up on his shit, regardless of the fact that it's published in Rolling Stone. I think the actual distribution of the publication is more of a limiting factor than any potential stigma attached to it.

Wow... I mean, wow.

Of all the "Goldman is Evil" talk that I've heard, this is without a doubt, the most damning.

I don't really know what can be done, like the article said, Goldman ends up looking like a hero each time. On top of that, whenever stuff like this happens, articles come out about how great they are at making profits and how it comes from their brilliance in investing.

With respect to the "next bubble," I have to admit, I didn't realize that the carbon credits could really be traded by entities that don't product carbon (at least not to the degree that manufacturing does). Talk about a horrible idea. I still have some faith in markets to properly price things like stocks, etc... (though its dwindling) but having the markets trade carbon credits goes completely against their purpose. I don't necessarily even want carbon credits to be prices "properly", I may want them to be (eventually) unrealistically expensive. Maybe not, but market pries don't really correlate with what we want.

Anyway, thanks for posting this. I'm going to look for some articles which disagree, just for a balanced view, but this is great stuff.

I'm not sure it's easy to provide the specific information you're requesting, but Glenn Greenwald documents the influence Goldman Sachs has over financial regulation in the US:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/10/16/goldman/in...

The lack of transparency in the case of an obvious and massive conflict of interest is just as frightening as any specific cases of wrongdoing - which, anyway, would probably result only in the show trials of some low-level traders or officials.

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