The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is that it's everywhere. The world's most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.
— Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone
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Paul Krugman / New York Times:The Joy of Sachs — The American economy remains in dire straits, with one worker in six unemployed or underemployed. Yet Goldman Sachs just reported record quarterly profits — and it's preparing to hand out huge bonuses, comparable to what it was paying before the crisis. What does this contrast tell us?
First, it tells us that Goldman is very good at what it does. Unfortunately, what it does is bad for America...
discussion:
Domenico Montanaro / msnbc.com: FIRST THOUGHTS: CHANGING NOTHINGDerek Thompson / The Atlantic Business Channel: What Bank of America and Citi's Profits Mean for Wall StMyglesias / Matthew Yglesias: Recapitalization Through ProfitsAmy Davidson / News Desk: Close Read: Bigger than the BronxVox Popoli: Everyone hates GoldmanDakinikat / The Confluence: When Will They Ever Learn? — The Blogging Econ heads …Matthew Holt / The Health Care Blog: Goldman Sachs, coming under fire but why should they care?Zandar / Zandar Versus The Stupid: Kroog Versus Goldman SachsMaha / The Mahablog: Hockey Mama and the MooseCreature / The Reaction: Banks continue to record billions in profitsBorowitz Report: Goldman Sachs in Talks to Acquire Treasury DepartmentSean Paul Kelley / The Agonist: Rubber To The Road — Goldman is a leach on the economy.Mark Thoma / Economist's View: Paul Krugman: The Joy of Sachs
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The Daily Bail:Ritholtz & Ratigan Examine The Vampire Squid -- The vampire squid is Government Goldman. You are a fish. "Annie, go get your nuke."
Dylan Ratigan teams up with Barry Ritholtz...
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
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Matt Taibbi / TrueSlant.com:The real price of Goldman’s giganto-profits -- So what’s wrong with Goldman posting $3.44 billion in second-quarter profits, what’s wrong with the company so far earmarking $11.4 billion in compensation for its employees? What’s wrong is that this is not free-market earnings but an almost pure state subsidy...
So what does this Goldman profit number mean? This is the final evidence that the bailouts were a political decision to use the power of the state to redirect society’s resources upward, on a grand scale. It was a selective rescue of a small group of chortling jerks who must be laughing all the way to the Hamptons every weekend about how they fleeced all of us at the very moment the game should have been up for all of them....
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Mike Morgan / GoldmanSachs666.com:
