Goldman Sachs profits hailed by lawmakers

[IDemo]

Source: Reuters

By John Poirier

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrats and Republicans alike lauded Goldman Sachs on Tuesday after the company, which received taxpayer assistance last year, said its quarterly profit rose and that it was setting aside billions for employees.

"Is there a law in the United States that you can't make profits?" Representative Paul Kanjorski, a senior Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, asked reporters.

Kanjorski said he hoped Goldman's profits were a sign of economic recovery and a possible bellwether for other sectors. "I have great hope General Motors has great profits next year," he said.

Last month, Goldman repaid the $10 billion that it received from the U.S. Treasury Department in October. In so doing, Goldman freed itself from government-imposed restrictions on executive pay.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE56D76620090714

[3waygeek]

1. Of course they were...

more profits means more contributions.

[Cant trust em]

3. Should we be rooting for financial institutions to report losses? nt

[Tansy_Gold]

5. Understand where their "profits" come from

They are siphoning off the earnings of real people. They buy and sell, via computer, and take a cut. They gamble with your money, your 401k's money, your pension plan's money, and they take a cut. You win, they take a cut. You lose, someone else wins, they take a cut.

They do not "earn" it. They are playing at a rigged game. They cannot lose.


This is not a sign of "recovery." It is a sign of continued collapse.




Tansy Gold

[Cant trust em]

6. Welcome to the world of finance. nt

[rollingrock]

7. 'They siphon off the earnings of real people'

the very definition of a parasite.

[Tansy_Gold]

9. Ding Ding Ding, I think we got us a winnuh heah!

Exactly.

Or as Matt Taibbi would say, vampire squid.



TG

[rollingrock]

11. Goldman Sachs makes Bernie Madoff

look like a petty thief.

[Tansy_Gold]

14. Because that's what Bernie is.

There is no more "investing" in the stock market. It's all a Ponzi scheme, a naked gamble.


And the brokers are ALL -- yes, ALL of them, even the "honest" ones -- crooks.

[JackRiddler]

18. & a scapegoat for a system - though a deserving one!

[Tansy_Gold]

20. Bernie's crime was that he couldn't keep the scam going.

It wasn't that he ran a scam; it was that he ran out of "new" investors.

So he's less a scapegoat than a discard.


The big boys on Wall Street did the same thing Bernie did, but they got to be "too big to fail" and suckered in the whole of the U.S. Treasury to keep their scam going.

Eventually they will run out of suckers, because in the classic irony of the successful Ponzi scheme they'll have sucked all the suckers dry. When will this happen? :shrug: I dunno. But it will. Eventually.



TG

[JackRiddler]

21. But he did for 40 years - that's pretty impressive...

His failure was that in this particular mega-crunch, his thing wasn't "too big too fail," he didn't have sufficient extortion power or pull and control inside the government (like GS, or for that matter AIG, BoA and Citigroup) to get a bailout plan, permission to valuate assets at fictional prices (suspension of mark to market), and the government's willingness to pick up those assets as public debt.

The crisis is hardly over, however. Most of the bad debt has yet to unwind.

[villager]

2. "All hail our masters!"

n/t

[Rick Myers]

4. Bless our financial overlords!!!

WTF? Read Rolling Stone...

PURE EVIL!!!

[ThomCat]

8. Yup. Prosecuting someone for having their software that allows them

to manipulate the market, claiming the government needs to help with the prosecution because he could use that software to manipulate the market and cause chaos, but all that does is reveal HOW Goldman Sachs makes their profit. They have proprietary software that cheats for them.

And they are the biggest owners of the Federal Reserve, have the most insiders working in the Dept of the Treasury and in the Obama Administration right now.

How could they NOT be making a profit with that kind of insider influence?

Goldman Sachs needs to be taken apart and investigated for serious market manipulation and fraud, and then broken up into smaller less powerful companies.

[ShamelessHussy]

10. How much did the tax payers earn for their strategic investment?

anyone see a number on that?

[Lorien]

12. "setting aside billions for employees" Gee, I wonder which employees

would they be talking about?

[rollingrock]

13. wtf...billions?

just how many freaking 'employees' do they have?

Translation: 'employee' is Wall Street jargon for a douchebag/scam artist.

[jgraz]

15. They're setting aside roughly $700,000 per employee.

Will you get that kind of bonus this year?

[Rex]

16. Well did that money come about from unethical practices?

If yes, then we are back to business as usual. :eyes:

[JackRiddler]

17. What about the $12 billion or more they bagged through the AIG bailout?

[Norrin Radd]

19. Dear Representative Paul Kanjorski,

go fuck yourself.

[No Elephants]

22. Guess whom Kanjorkski represents...

"Is there a law in the United States that you can't make profits?" Representative Paul Kanjorski, a senior Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, asked reporters.