{"id":189306,"date":"2010-04-20T12:14:00","date_gmt":"2010-04-20T17:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2010\/04\/20\/damn-when-goldman-gets-an-update-post\/"},"modified":"2010-04-20T12:14:00","modified_gmt":"2010-04-20T17:14:00","slug":"damn-when-goldman-gets-an-update-post","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2010\/04\/20\/damn-when-goldman-gets-an-update-post\/","title":{"rendered":"Damn, When Goldman Gets an Update Post\u2026\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"border: 1px solid black; margin: 0px 10px; padding: 5px; width: 400px; float: right; text-align: center;\">Click for full size<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/img689.imageshack.us\/img689\/3860\/c042020105025533.gif\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/img689.imageshack.us\/img689\/3860\/c042020105025533.gif\" bordercolor=\"white\" border=\"0\" width=\"390\" \/><\/a> <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">True Dat!<\/span><\/div>\n<p>You know that the Vampire Squid<sup>*<\/sup> is &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/May_you_live_in_interesting_times\">living in interesting times<\/a>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It now appears that governments in both <a href=\"http:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/idUSLDE63H0AA20100418\">the UK<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/apps\/news?pid=20601087&amp;sid=aAzO2w7dx42Q&amp;pos=5\">Germany<\/a> are calling for investigations of the firm&#8217;s dealings.<\/p>\n<p>Additionally, in a splendid piece of electioneering, the Tory opposition is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/news\/uk\/politics\/sack-goldmans-ministers-urged-to-bar-bank-from-government-contracts-1948787.html\">calling for a ban on government contracts for the firm until the investigations are concluded<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, in what might be the ultimate indignity, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ft.com\/cms\/s\/0\/db7dc52a-4bee-11df-a217-00144feab49a.html?ftcamp=rss\">AIG is looking at suing Goldman Sachs on the insurance policies that it provided<\/a>, on the theory that they were under no obligation to pay the arsonist who burnt down his own house.<\/p>\n<p>It will be interesting to see where things goes from here.<\/p>\n<p>Even with all the the opprobrium directed at the firm (see the Taibbi quote below), the consensus was that they would skate, because they were &#8220;too powerful&#8221; for any meaningful action to be taken against them.<\/p>\n<p>If this case cracks that shell, I think that we will see many more rocks overturned to see what lurks beneath.<\/p>\n<p>My guess is that this will all end with a token fine and no admission of wrong-doing, but I would be happy to be wrong.<\/p>\n<p><sup>*<\/sup><span style=\"font-size:78%;\">Alas, I cannot claim credit  for the bon mot describing Goldman Sachs as a, &#8220;great vampire squid  wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood  funnel into anything that smells like money.&#8221;  This was coined by the  great Matt Taibbi, in his article on the <\/span><span style=\"text-decoration: line-through;font-size:78%;\" >massive criminal  conspiracy<\/span><span style=\"font-size:78%;\"> investment firm, <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/politics\/story\/28816321\/the_great_american_bubble_machine\"><span style=\"font-style: italic;font-size:78%;\" >The Great American Bubble  Machine<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-size:78%;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Click for full size True Dat! You know that the Vampire Squid* is &#8220;living in interesting times.&#8221; It now appears that governments in both the UK and Germany are calling for investigations of the firm&#8217;s dealings. Additionally, in a splendid piece of electioneering, the Tory opposition is calling for a ban on government contracts for &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[970,984,1004,972,985],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-189306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corruption","category-europe","category-finance","category-justice","category-regulation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189306"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189306\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}