Quote of the Day

"It makes me ill how callously people talk about ripping clients off."

-- Former Goldman Sachs Executive Director Greg Smith

I say former because Smith is quitting Goldman Sachs as of today -- and his letter of resignation is an op-ed piece in today's New York Times. It's scathing. It's illuminating. And while it likely won't change a thing when it comes to the firm's culture of relentless, insatiable greed, it's still a very big public kick in the nuts to Wall Street.

Make no mistake: This is a PR catastrophe for Goldman.

Adding: As you'd expect, Taibbi's take on Smith's exit -- which he calls "brave," "eloquent" and "devastating" -- is very good.

Quote of the Day

"I'm reminded of the scene in Goodfellas when the cops bust Henry…: Bye bye, dickhead!"

-- Matt Taibbi on the news that Goldman Sachs is finally being accused of fraud by the SEC

Quote of the Day

"Well, look, first of all, I know both those guys. They're very savvy businessmen. And I, like most of the American people, don't begrudge people success or wealth. That's part of the free market system. I do think that the compensation packages that we've seen over the last decade at least have not matched up always to performance. I think that shareholders oftentimes have not had any significant say in the pay structures for CEOs."

-- President Obama in an interview with Bloomberg Business Week, when asked about the multi-million dollar bonuses received by Lloyd "God's Work" Blankfein of Goldman Sachs and Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase

This had to be the Quote of the Day simply because of the fallout it's generated.

A lot of people are rightfully saying that the egalitarian tack that Obama seems to be taking here with the Wall Street barons who Hoovered up taxpayer dollars then thumbed their noses at the struggling taxpayers themselves is more than a little questionable. Keep in mind, it wasn't long ago that Obama was publicly expressing outrage over the huge bonuses Wall Street executives continued to enjoy -- the same executives who gang-banged the United States economy, by the way -- while everybody else sucked eggs.

So was this a really goddamned stupid thing to say?

Yeah, when you consider what he's said before and what the people who put him in office -- myself included -- believe, it is in every possible way.

While it's true that Obama didn't specifically say he was for the kind of egregious payouts assholes like Blankfein and Dimon are inexplicably getting and giving, contractual obligations or not, it's tough to not want to hear Obama continue to stand up for "Main Street" and not hedge even an inch to the Wall Street casino managers and pit bosses who've screwed the middle class at almost every turn. Obama was right to say that we don't punish success in America; that's not what we're about. But, in theory anyway, we also don't allow criminals to run the table on the little guy then buy themselves yachts with the little guy's money to reward themselves for fucking the little guy over. Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan screwed up, and it's only through our tax dollars that they're still afloat. That's not free enterprise; in free enterprise, you screw up, your company goes down. That simple.

I've always credited Obama rather than blamed him for trying to be a peacemaker -- for being smart enough to provide measured and nuanced responses depending on whom he's attempting to bring to the table. This is all well and good as long as he doesn't go back on a past principle or isn't straight-up hypocritical by doing so. He went out of his way not to antagonize Wall Street in the pages of Bloomberg Business Week. Under normal circumstances there would be nothing inherently offensive about this -- but these aren't normal circumstances. The pressure needs to be kept up on Wall Street 24/7. These guys are already convinced that they can continue to get away with the crime of the century; only the full brunt of America's outrage, delivered at the highest levels of government and by the most powerful servants indebted to the public, will make them think even for a minute that it might not be as easy as they thought.

Theoretically, Obama may have been correct in what he said -- but the message it sends right now is dead wrong. He needs to understand this completely and without reservation.

Quote of the Day

"Corporations aren't born; they are legal inventions with state-sanctioned paperwork for DNA. How do these non-biological entities, existing through an obeisant contrivance of government, merit equal protection of the constitution? More importantly, why don't actual people enjoy the kind of legal protections America provides to corporations? ... Corporate personhood exists for the purpose of divorcing men like Lloyd Blankfein from the consequences of their actions. Well, I say enough: the man's metaphorical head must roll and the crime for which he bears executive responsibility must be punished. I don't even care if Goldman-Sachs experiences a corporate makeover in the process, but America cannot afford to reward this kind of behavior with taxpayer dollars."

-- Matt Osborne in a piece entitled "Citizen Goldman Sachs, Psychopath"

I always imagine Matt being a cross between Tyler Durden and Horatius at the Bridge -- simultaneously tearing stuff down that doesn't matter and defending to the death what does -- and that's what makes him so great to read.

Breaking the Banks

This is a start. Now if we can just get a measure passed that will allow Americans to punch Lloyd "God's Work" Blankfein in the mouth with impunity, we'll be on to something.

The Huffington Post: Obama Seeks New Banking Restrictions/1.21.10

Speaking of which, who knew doing God's work was so lucrative?

The Huffington Post: Goldman Sachs Profits Hit $4.8-Billion, Pay Up 47%/1.21.10

Just warms your fucking heart, doesn't it?

Armed and Prosperous

Oh, this is rich -- literally:

"'I just wrote my first reference for a gun permit,' said a friend, who told me of swearing to the good character of a Goldman Sachs Group Inc. banker who applied to the local police for a permit to buy a pistol. The banker had told this friend of mine that senior Goldman people have loaded up on firearms and are now equipped to defend themselves if there is a populist uprising against the bank.

I called Goldman Sachs spokesman Lucas van Praag to ask whether it’s true that Goldman partners feel they need handguns to protect themselves from the angry proletariat. He didn’t call me back. The New York Police Department has told me that 'as a preliminary matter' it believes some of the bankers I inquired about do have pistol permits. The NYPD also said it will be a while before it can name names."

Alert Reader Steve forwarded me this piece from Bloomberg today. As soon as I read it I whipped over to Taibbi's blog -- sure enough, he's got a great take on it.

Taibblog: Goldman Sachs Arms Itself/11.30.09

By the way, you'd have to imagine that Lloyd Blankfein doesn't own a gun. He doesn't need one; he's got the power of God on his side, after all.

Quote of the Day*

"We participated in things that were clearly wrong and have reason to regret... We apologize.”

-- Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd "God's Work" Blankfein, addressing a Directorship conference in New York City; worth mentioning is that while Blankfein admits that Goldman helped ass-fuck the global economy, he's still giving the go-ahead to a record year of bonuses for his executives and the mass-eviction of strapped homeowners during the holiday season.

In other words, thanks for the apology, douche.

(By the way, take a look at this: TDG: God Confirms He's Just Doing Lloyd Blankfein's Work/11.20.09. It's one of the funniest things you'll read all day.)

*The whole quote thing was originally supposed to be a once-in-a-while kind of deal, then it became a running joke that there were several Quotes of the Week; now I'm just gonna have to finally give in and do it day by day.

American Psychos

In the grand tradition of Mad Magazine's "Scenes We'd Like To See," comes a scene we wouldn't exactly like to see but one that we pretty much are seeing these days -- compliments of Matt Taibbi.

Here's his take on what a recent story in Bloomberg -- one in which Goldman spokesman Lucas van Praag laughed off Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein's statement that he was doing "God's work" -- may as well have been:

"Blankfein didn’t mean to be taken seriously when he said the bank was doing 'God’s work,' said the bank’s spokesman, Lucas van Praag.

It was 'obviously ironic, a throwaway response,' said van Pragg. 'Sort of like saying, Life fucking rocks from up here, so suck on my yacht, when someone asks how you’re doing. Or stepping right on a homeless person’s crotch instead of stepping over or around him on your way to work.'

Van Pragg added that Blankfein’s comments were also 'like pouring battery acid on a sleeping harbor seal, or using an Indian slum child’s eyes for martini olives,' or like 'getting the mortgage department to do the wave during a foreclosure' and 'cheering and chest-bumping while two shivering AIDS patients are hauled out of their homes in blankets by sheriff’s deputies. Just an aside, you know, something you do.'"

Damn, I love Taibbi.

Quote of the Week

"Everybody should be, frankly, happy (with the continuing, monumental successes of Goldman Sachs). The financial system led us into the crisis and it will lead us out. I've got news for you... If the financial system goes down, our business is going down and, trust me, yours and everyone else's is going down, too."

-- "Darth" Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs, in an interview with the London Times

He went on to say that he's "doing God's Work."

I wish I were making this up.

Swine at the Trough

I originally didn't want to make this personal, but after some late night thought -- as well as a comment from Jayne that broached the subject -- I don't see why I shouldn't.

I'll let Jayne explain it, by way of what she posted in the comment section of yesterday's quote referencing Goldman Sachs's preferential treatment in securing hundreds of doses of the H1N1 vaccine for its employees, while most other Americans are forced to wait.

I think this is worth putting up on the main page:

"Your 15-month old daughter is on the 'wait list' to get the vaccine. Her pediatrician hasn't received the doses that were supposed to have been delivered over a month ago and says it's 'up to the government' if they end up getting them at all. I'm so glad she has to wait so that the nice people at GS can be taken care of first."

So there you have it. Inara waits while Goldman Sachs executives get to literally bathe in the vaccine if they want.

This was my response, also in the comment section of that post and now moved to the main page:

"This may seem overly simplistic but unfortunately it's also the reality of the situation: You're rich -- not just rich but obscenely rich, and on the backs of the taxpayers who were forced to bail out your asshole folly -- you live. You're poor or middle-class -- you can die. You don't matter one bit. To grab a line from a previous Taibbi column, "Tough, suck on our yachts."

A child living in Queens, New York -- an epicenter of the American swine flu outbreak -- is made to wait for a vaccine until the Masters of the Universe across the river are sufficiently protected. Honestly, if this sort of thing isn't the straw that breaks the back of a very angry public -- I have no idea what will be.

It would be nice if Americans could wake up and realize that most of us will never be one of these people; that dream we were all pitched about how anyone can become a member of the plutocracy and spend their lives drinking champagne out of a Manolo Blahnik or Edward Green while jetting around the globe is in large part a lie. Most of us and our families will spend our lives getting walked on by these people and the unaccountable corporate leviathans they've created in some form or another -- whether we're being hired and fired at their whim, turned down for insurance or health care because we just don't add up to enough on a bank ledger to make us worth saving, or being gambled on and eventually made to pay for the bad, greed-fueled bets that brought the entire global economy to its knees. At some point, the millions and millions of us are going to have to say that we've damn well had enough of the antics of the handful of them. Yes, I realize this is a reductionist-populist way of thinking, but after all we've witnessed over the past couple of years, is there really any way to ignore the truth anymore?

A small group of silver spoon-fed sociopaths take and take and take and amass a staggering volume of wealth -- everyone else ends up on a waiting list to get a flu vaccine.

When did our culture become this immoral -- this inhumane?"

It now dawns on me that in my indignation I left out one complicit party: the government. These corporations wouldn't be able to get away with this shit were it not for a powerful group of bought and paid for lawmakers and politicians who will always put the needs of the people who line their pockets above those of the voters who put them in a position where they could get fat and happy by greedily lapping at the golden teat of big business in the first place.

Something has to give. At some point, somebody's going to have to say "enough is enough" and actually mean it.

It's not going to happen anytime soon, though. Need proof? Just read on:

Bloomberg: Big Pharma's Crime Spree: Pfizer Broke the Law by Promoting Drugs for Unapproved Uses, 31 Deaths from Just One Drug/11.9.09

These assholes are so full of hubris and audacity that they don't even hide -- they'll come right out and admit that they make more money marketing potentially dangerous drugs, even if they do have to pay the occasional multi-million dollar fine, than they would if they played it safe.

You and me? Our health -- our lives?

We're expendable.

Who Would Jesus Screw?

Matt Taibbi takes on a news item that's so mind-boggling it seems like it has to be a joke: a public push by Goldman Sachs and other investment bank executives to conflate their brand of shameless, insatiable greed with -- sitting down? -- the teachings of Jesus.

A small taste:

"On the other end of the spectrum, not nearly as evil comparably but still pretty bad, are people like this clown from Goldman. They lie to themselves and think up elaborate reasons to do the bad acts they were already hoping to do anyway. Some day, when historians finish peeling back all the different onion-layers of this financial disaster we’re living out right now, they’re going to find at the heart of it all this social Darwinist mantra wherein a very small group of overeducated twerps agreed to believe that stealing every last dime they could get their hands on was something other than what it looks and sounds like to the rest of us. That protective delusion was the first of the many luxuries they bought with all the money they stole, and see if it isn’t the last they agree to give up. What a bunch of assholes!"

True/Slant: Taibblog: Goldman One-Ups Gordon Gekko, Says Jesus Embraced Greed/11.4.09

Quote of the Week(end)

"Can you not read how mad people are at you? When most people saw the headline 'Goldman Sachs Gets Swine Flu Vaccine' they were super happy until they read the word 'vaccine.'"

-- Amy Poehler on last night's Saturday Night Live, commenting on the news that Wall Street banks have already secured thousands of doses of the H1N1 vaccine while many at-risk Americans are forced to wait; Goldman Sachs alone has received 200 doses of the Swine Flu vaccine -- as much as New York City's Lenox Hill Hospital

The Goldman Egg

Just lovely.

This isn't a case of the fox guarding the hen house -- it's like the fox building the fucking thing.

Bloomberg: 29-year-old Goldman Sachs Veteran Named as First Chief of SEC's Enforcement Division/10.16.09

Sacking Goldman

If you had told me a couple of months ago that Dylan Ratigan would wind up being the voice of both sanity and smart populist outrage in the midst of this worsening financial crisis, I'd have laughed out loud. But damn if he hasn't become just that lately.

From the Huffington Post:

"Allowing these outdated banks to take control of our government and change the rules so they are protected from the natural competition and reward systems that have created so many innovations in our country, you not only steal from the citizens on behalf of the least worthy but you also doom them by trapping the capital that would have been used to generate new innovation and, most tangibly in our current situation, jobs.

We don't want a government commandeered by those in our banking system who have failed and been passed over by technological advancements, innovation and flat out smarts.

The government's job is to restore the rules of investment, not indulge those who want to unfairly sustain their wealth and power at our nation's expense."

For the record, this little call to arms comes just as Goldman Sachs posts $3.1 billion in third-quarter profits on the backs of U.S. taxpayers and is setting aside a total of $5.3 billion for employee bonuses.

The Huffington Post: Turn Goldman Anger Into Government Action/10.14.09

Quote of the Week

"On one final note, I received a few letters asking me if I was aware when I wrote my Goldman piece that there actually is such an animal as a vampire squid, and if perhaps I’m not sorry now to have defamed this beautiful animal. The answer is yes (I’d seen documentaries) and yes. Apologies to Vampyroteuthis infernalis (literally, the vampire squid from hell)."

-- Matt Taibbi, apologizing to the vampire squid for having compared Goldman Sachs to it in his scathing piece in the early-July issue of Rolling Stone

(h/t The Daily Banter)

Goldman Finger

Since I was out most of last week, I missed the opportunity to get into the news that Goldman Sachs just posted $3 billion in second quarter profits and set aside more than $11 billion as compensation and bonuses for its employees.

Thankfully, the ever-vigilant and always entertaining Matt Taibbi had plenty to say about it. He hit Goldman hard in his most recent piece for Rolling Stone, outlining decades of government-enabled malfeasance that made Goldman staggeringly wealthy while the rest of us sucked eggs. If you haven't read the full story yet, I highly recommend doing so -- although take a couple of Xanax beforehand, otherwise it'll infuriate you to the point of wanting to throw a chair through a window.

Once you're done with that, read Taibbi's reaction to word of the Goldman profits and bonuses.

Here's a taste:

"Last year, when Hank Paulson told us all that the planet would explode if we didn’t fork over a gazillion dollars to Wall Street immediately, the entire rationale not only for TARP but for the whole galaxy of lesser-known state crutches and safety nets quietly ushered in later on was that Wall Street, once rescued, would pump money back into the economy, create jobs, and initiate a widespread recovery. This, we were told, was the reason we needed to pilfer massive amounts of middle-class tax revenue and hand it over to the same guys who had just blown up the financial world. We’d save their asses, they’d save ours. That was the deal.

It turned out not to happen that way. We constructed this massive bailout infrastructure, and instead of pumping that free money back into the economy, the banks instead simply hoarded it and ate it on the spot, converting it into bonuses. 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...

Taken altogether, what all of this means is that Goldman’s profit announcement is a giant 'fuck you' to the rest of the country. It is a statement of supreme privilege, an announcement that it feels no shame in taking subsidies and funneling them directly into their pockets, and moreover feels no fear of any public response. It knows that it’s untouchable and it’s not going to change its behavior for anyone. And it doesn’t matter who knows it."

I've said it before but it just can't be restated enough: I swear, in another time and place these people would've been hauled kicking and screaming to the guillotines.

Related:

DXM: Get Rich and Die Tryin'/3.16.09

Quote(s) of the Week (Early Contender)

"While we regret that we participated in the market euphoria and failed to raise a responsible voice, we are proud of the way our firm managed the risk it assumed on behalf of our client before and during the financial crisis."

-- Goldman, Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, "apologizing" for his company's role in crashing America's entire economy

"We’re proud that we kept the extreme crapness of our mortgage securities secret from everyone but our clients, and fobbed off the nightmare leverage they created on dumbass AIG and all the pensioners and teachers and other idiots who bought this stuff. Go fuck yourselves and suck on our yachts."

-- Matt Taibbi, translating the above "apology"