Weaver95: Didn't Goldman-Sachs just admit that their super secret computerized trading program gave them an unfair market advantage?

if they needed a bailout it wasn't that good.

griffer: That's not my packet, that's my Haggis, ya twit.

Why the hell would you shove your haggis up there? How did you even get it *in* there?

what is the ROI the american people will see on their investment?

griffer: Wait.

This got weird.

Yeah, sorry. I gotta run and actually finish some real work anyway.

Until the next commie/thieving bastard thread then.

Playerslight: griffer: Wait.

This got weird.

Yeah, sorry. I gotta run and actually finish some real work anyway.

Until the next commie/thieving bastard thread then.

ZU BEFEHL!

/bis spater

griffer: ZU BEFEHL!

/bis spater

L8R, my moral superior.

edg_mule: spare me, what percentage do the banks really pay? I mean percent of each dollar earned. The U.S. has some of the loosest corporate tax code in the world. That's why our tax rate, on paper, for corporations is much higher than Europes. What is the actual amount they pay at the end of the day? I know that the tax code for your average schlep in the U.S. isn't as loose, nor can they afford the high priced Tax accountants/attorneys.

I was going more along the lines of personal tax payers. I don't disagree that corporations and rich (let's call it $1mm+ per annum) are the most efficient at tax reduction, but the guys funding this whole thing are mid-level bankers or top-tier income earners in other careers who are in the mid-six figure range. The moral of the story is a barbell - be extremely successful or extremely lazy.

Article from RS regarding GS (new window)

Forgot about the FDIC-backed loans to the tune of at least $20 billion, subby. Not to mention mark-to-magic accounting and leveraging up the hilt (learn the term VaR) betting on (most likely) commodities, stock in energy companies, REITS (upgraded by them in April, but they'll surely be downgraded soon) stock in financials, arbitrage plays in near-bankrupt penny stocks and of course, fun with derivatives (new window).

Let's just hope it doesn't blowup LCTM style.

griffer: Morton_toes: griffer: thomps: laziness invites scorn.

Pro Tip: Personal attacks don't hide the fact that you didn't get the joke and your a idiot.


No, your and idiot, moran.

The only people who biatch about the rich are pour loosers.

Shut up, you pour looser!

Hay their! Hold up, I'm not biatching about rich people! I'm just biatching about you!

TAA DAA!!

Playerslight: Weaver95: Didn't Goldman-Sachs just admit that their super secret computerized trading program gave them an unfair market advantage?

As long as they aren't inside trading (not that I believe they aren't) it's not technically an unfair advantage. They were gaming the programmed trading of other companies on Wall Street, which is perfectly legit. Day trading is a chump's game anyway, when you're going up against guys like that.

No, but they're probably front-running - at least their own clients - and that's usually a big no-no. There's some speculation that they're front-running ALL NYSE trading though I'm not going down that particular rabbit hole in tinfoil-hat territory.

Plus they tend to 'pump and dump' - REITS for example - though they've yet to dump - activities that would get a one-man outfit touting penny-stocks shut down by the SEC.

Morton_toes: griffer: Morton_toes: griffer: thomps: laziness invites scorn.

Pro Tip: Personal attacks don't hide the fact that you didn't get the joke and your a idiot.


No, your and idiot, moran.

The only people who biatch about the rich are pour loosers.

Shut up, you pour looser!

Hay their! Hold up, I'm not biatching about rich people! I'm just biatching about you!

You fail at spelling, therefore I win.

GOODNIGHT, SIR!

kittylittle: 'pump and dump'

Aw, prom.

Also, LTCM, not LCTM.

I can't waste time arguing with people who can' remember that it was called Long Term Capital Managers.

Weaver95: Didn't Goldman-Sachs just admit that their super secret computerized trading program gave them an unfair market advantage?

Been going on since all this bailout shiat went down. Honest people who watch the market have been commenting for months on how the market is being manipulated by... someone?

I've been out for some time now and won't get back in until the shenanigans appear to ease. This will mean watching the Dow head below 6500, where it belongs.

GAT_00: Weaver95: seems kind of unfair tho, don't you think?

How are you arguing against that? Goldman Sacks is playing the system.


There, I fixed it.

Marcus Aurelius: a direct line to the US Treasury through AIG Hank Paulson and Tim Geithner

Yup. None other than Turbo Tim and Hanky Panky.

It's a great game if you're in complete control of the outcome. Otherwise, need to find another game that hasn't, in effect, become corrupted.

griffer: Wait.

This got weird.

yeah, basically you guys were e-tongue kissing there for a while

hockeyfarker: griffer: Wait.

This got weird.

yeah, basically you guys were e-tongue kissing there for a while

And you know this because you were watching, fist deep in a bucket of fishoil cranking away.

Also, TOPIC DESTROYED, SUCK IT TIN FOIL LOONIES! BWAHAHAHAHAHA!

/basemetal uses chicks
//i just get weird and gay

griffer: //i just get weird and gay

you're not kidding.

griffer: And you know this because you were watching, fist deep in a bucket of fishoil cranking away.

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.


griffer: Also, TOPIC DESTROYED, SUCK IT TIN FOIL LOONIES! BWAHAHAHAHAHA!

I FAVOUR GREATER MARKET REGULATION AND MORE ATTENTION SHOULD BE PAID TO POTENTIAL CONFLICTS OF INTEREST THAT GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS MAY HAVE

I notice the other thread about GS disappeared into totalfark -- the one about how they've been intimately involved in every bubble for the last 100 years.

hockeyfarker: I FAVOUR BLAH, BLAH, BLAH....

You quoted me three times. That's like e-head and you totally e-swallowed!

THANKS, STUD!

Where's the outrage?!
Where's the blood in the streets?

Right. America's become complacent, and I'm too broke to care.

I just e-came on Becky's face, but only because she begged me to let her e-swallow it

WRX_Smokescreen: Where's the outrage?!
Where's the blood in the streets?

Right. America's become complacent, and I'm too broke to care.

0/10

Dude, not cool.

/RIP, Becky
//e-spect her memory you ass

WRX_Smokescreen: Where's the outrage?!
Where's the blood in the streets?

Right. America's become complacent, and I'm too broke to care.

Pipe down and pay your taxes, citizen!

This doesn't concern you, and anyway, it's far too complicated for your poor (and by poor, I mean not wealthy) little brain to digest. We're too big to fail, but Oh, BTW, do you think you could spot us a few Billion till next Friday? KTHNXBAI!

When Becky is famous and popular, then I will respect her memory.

DAMN YOU, KING OF POP!

DAAAAAAAAAAAMN YOU!

turdmist: Goldman Sachs is merely a conduit for the Fed and more importantly the Rothschild Bank of International Settlements. The revolving door of GS people in recent years has been suppressed by the corporate mind control apparatus to the point the masses have no clue what is being done to us. Even if someone brings it up and exposes the rampant collusion and corruption they will be labeled "conspiracy theorists" or ignored. What GS is doing here is very similar to what the IMF and World Bank do around the world because they are all cut from the same cloth, play by the same rules and follow the same game plan/script.

How do the Five Jew Bankers and the Bilderbergers tie into this?

bidness: How do the Five Jew Bankers and the Bilderbergers tie into this?

Certainly not with knotzies.

and we thought Socialism for the Wealthy wouldn't work....


Let's celebrate!


PS -- 1% of the world's population owns 80% of the world's Wealth.

have a nice day!

Chances are that most of these higher-than-expected profits came out of thin air.

1) Difficult-to-value assets like bundled-mortgage derivatives were previously valued at market value as per mark-to-market regulations. This caused massive losses at the banks last year when the market finally realized that those packaged sub-prime loans were worthless (whodathunkit?).

2) Goldman Sachs and other banks lobbied politicians to get those regulations changed.

3) Politicians threatened regulators.

4) Regulators instate new accounting rules saying that those difficult-to-value assets can be valued with significant judgment exercised by banks, ie. they get valued at whatever the hell the bank wants to value them at.

5) Massive profit.

Link (new window)

And most of you thought the Community Reinvestment Act was just to help put under privileged people into their very own homes.

/you are just so cute.
//wants to sell you a bridge in NY.
///shoot, you've already bought it. darn you GS!!

tactical nuke + wall street = everyone wins

tacks: Goldman makes record profits because they reward their people very well for taking calculated risks that pay off.

They are very smart. And it is easy to take risks with a huge safety net. These two things combined are the reason GS is so profitable. If they weren't smart they wouldn't be able to put themselves in positions to profit. If the government wasn't there to prop up their "calculated risks" (either directly or indirectly) they would be swimming in red ink more often than they do now.

Weaver95: look - like any good libertarian capitalist, I believe that competition leads to healthy markets. Remove competition, and you get stagnation, monopolies and market distortions. It just seems to me that Goldman-Sachs has found a quasi-legal way to eliminate competition and nobody seems to care.

As usual, I agree in part.

The truth is Goldman Sachs has always operated will within the rules, they just are way better at it than anyone else. Sort of like how Michael Jordan would play within the rules but was famous for pushing off like a motherfarker.

Also, Goldman's numbers are huge because the federal government took their biggest competition out to the shed and shot them (Bear Stearns, etc). It's pretty easy to make good money on transactions when all the lower priced large firms are six feet underground.

That being said, I'm glad at least one beneficiary of government money will pay back soon.

And for those in love with your new president, do you think it's a coincidence that Obama (whom i voted for) received the most in donations from employees of Goldman Sachs?

it's called FRONTRUNNING and it's not just 'unfair' or 'unethical' it's indisputably ILLEGAL.

They're (allegedly) using algorithms and server proximity to front run both their clients and the market in general. But it's all good - their main man Timmy G. is in da hizzouse.

/Pitchforks / Torches '12, bitaches.

beanx: it's called FRONTRUNNING and it's not just 'unfair' or 'unethical' it's indisputably ILLEGAL.

They're (allegedly) using algorithms and server proximity to front run both their clients and the market in general. But it's all good - their main man Timmy G. is in da hizzouse.

/Pitchforks / Torches '12, bitaches.

Once upon a time you dressed so fine/
Through the bums a dime in your prime, didn't you?
Peopled call, say, beware doll, you're bound to fall/
You thought they were all kiddin you.

thomps: i really hate defending goldman, but i think the argument would be that when they are using the program they are doing so under exchange and government regulation, with compliance officers and lawyer.

Just like Enron was.

United States of Goldman Sachs.

The Great American Bubble Machine (new window)

Why so much hating on Goldman?

Well, when they pay back TARP, including what they got funneled through AIG, and they can state that profit without mark-to-fantasy, then I will be impressed.

They didn't make shiat, it is ALL our tax dollars, and we are on the hook for the trillions of their toxic waste yet to implode. They will shove those contracts onto the taxpayer before they unwind.

griffer: i just get weird and gay

QFT

Combustible Elvis: griffer: i just get weird and gay

QFT

Suck it, buddy.

;-)

griffer: Combustible Elvis: griffer: i just get weird and gay

QFT

Suck it, buddy.

;-)

You litering now as well then?

"I just don't understand why the country, or a working person in Michigan, Ohio or Kansas, would cheer against Goldman doing well just because the government invested in Goldman at a time when the financial markets were in chaos."

Maybe because the rich stay rich and get richer off the interest the average working stiff pays?

finabuddy: Why so much hating on Goldman?

Because its the fault of rich people, that not-rich people are not rich.

I'm just glad we could help a struggling company out...

I'm thinking happy happy thoughts of my elected officials while my friends lose their jobs and houses