Word: goldmans
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...times your money in oil - and suddenly every dollar you put into the futures market controls well over $300 worth of oil. We can put a price tag on the whole market: for a mere $4 billion, you can easily control the fate of the entire multitrillion-dollar industry. Goldman Sachs pays out more than that in annual bonuses. (Read "The Reasons Behind Big Oil Declining Iraq's Riches...
Moore is right that the rock mag's piece contains a bit of exaggerating and a whole lot of hyperbole. But to call it not real journalism or lacking substance is wrong. There are plenty of facts to back up the case that Goldman generates large profits by taking advantage of others. Goldman is the only Wall Street firm so far to have paid to settle charges - $60 million to the state of Massachusetts - for creating the rotten mortgage bonds that were at the heart of the recent financial crisis. And get this: contained in Goldman's client form...
...Goldman responds that this type of language is common on Wall Street. And that is the problem, and the problem with Rolling Stone's article as well. Goldman has done plenty wrong, but not much alone. Goldman may have assisted in the dotcom and housing bubbles, but it is wrong to say that it was the single blower. The only thing Goldman is solely at fault for is being a bit better at playing the game than its peers...
Also, while many of the advantages Goldman gets are unfair, is it really Goldman's fault? Is it Goldman's fault that it was able to make billions of dollars with the taxpayers' dollars it was forced to take as part of the Treasury's Troubled Asset Relief Program? Is it Goldman's fault that government officials from both parties regularly pick its employees or former employees to fill key regulatory positions? Goldman may benefit, but is the firm really to blame...
...Rolling Stone] article makes a very compelling case against Goldman Sachs, but I think the problems it identifies are pervasive in financial firms and corporate America in general," says Nell Minow, who is the co-founder of the Corporate Library, a research firm that tracks corporate-governance issues. "We need to launch substantive financial reform rather than weighing the faults of one firm versus another." Minow's point is this: spend too much time on Goldman and you miss the fact of how broadly the financial system and the regulations that are supposed to keep profiteers in check failed...