THE GOLDMAN SACHS CONSPIRACY?
Courtesy of The Pragmatic Capitalist
The drum beat against Goldman Sachs is growing louder. As the global economy collapsed last year and U.S. citizens sank under crushing house prices and job losses Goldman appeared to be flourishing (also see here). Despite doing more than just about any other firm to help create the housing bubble Goldman is now one of the greatest beneficiaries. But what was once nothing more than a conspiracy theory has now turned into a full blown public debate about manipulation and Goldman’s use of taxpayer bailout dollars.
It’s widely believed that the firm would not have survived the financial crisis without bailout cash and a few interesting moves in the AIG portfolio, but now as the market gyrates in odd fashion on a daily basis the U.S. taxpayer appears to be the one losing. Goldman’s close ties to the U.S. government have also raised some eyebrows lately. The routinely high program trading correlated with market ramps are odd as well:
Meanwhile, job losses continue to mount, wages remain flat and the stock market is 40% off its all-time highs. But Goldman Sachs is rumored to be having their best year ever. And they’re rewarding their employees for it. I’m not generally one for conspiracy theories, but something isn’t right when millions of Americans seem to be in so much pain while the firm that helped create much of this crisis is flourishing.
As always, Martin Armstrong has an opinion and some entertaining reading here on the Goldman Sachs conspiracy…If you missed Matt Taibbi’s piece in Rolling Stone you can find it here.
