Goldman Sachs, an investment bank, is being questioned by the U.S. Senate for some of its unethical practices…the firm sold products that it itself was betting against. Numerous internal e-mails talked about how bad the products were. When a Congressman read one of the e-mails and asked the Chief Financial Officer if he thought Goldman Sachs should have been selling the products the CFO answered, “I think that’s a very unfortunate thing to have on an e-mail.” People in the hearing room burst out laughing. Sometimes it helps to laugh.
The Securities and Exchange Commission has filed a civil suit for investment fraud against the company, but it isn’t clear that they can prove any law was broken. So Andy Borowitz had fun with the situation in his April 25th report. He claims eleven indicted Somali pirates are claiming their operations have been legal because they weren’t pirates. Instead they are investment bankers. They allegedly became a subsidiary of Goldman Sachs in 2008 and had simply attacked ships that Goldman Sachs had bet against. They merged their operations with the banking giant in order to get their fair share of the government bailout money and also because the laws against investment bankers are much more lenient than the laws against pirates. Borowitz quoted one government source who said, “There are lots of laws that could bring these guys down if they were, in fact, pirates. But if they’re bankers, our hands are tied.”
What about you? Is this something you can laugh about?
I could do a faint haha over that, which would turn into outrage.
I saw on the news, the young man who runs Goldman Sachs being surrounded by lots of men flashing cameras. What kind of life, in spite of all the money he has, is a life when everyone in the nation hates you?
I can smile and laugh about the antics of late night comedians having their “fun” with this — but it’s a kind of grim humor.
What gets me is that we played by the rules. We scrimped and saved and lived with our means, paid off our mortgage and our credit card, and did all the right things so that I could retire early… a graduated retirement that scales back when social security and medicare kick in…. 🙁
I don’t have any sympathy at all for these bankers and any little law that can be applied to them needs to be. What they did was unethical.
I think that Goldman Sachs is also one of the banks pushing cap & trade along with carbon futures…, which Italian mafioso are also getting their greedy fingers into.
So what’s a few Somali pirates in the mix?
.-= Mike´s last blog ..A short spring time trip =-.
No, some things I don’t have a sense of humour about.
Lots of people sell stuff they don’t believe in – some check out operators don’t eat junk food for instance. We invest in banks but probably don’t approve of transferring wealth from the poor to the rich – which is what giving higher interests rates to those with more money in the bank does.
Ethics gets pretty interesting pretty quickly. And that’s before we get into the relations between law and ethics.
bikehikebabe,
I’m not sure that the brash high fliers worry much about what the “common people” think of them. My guess is this is a nuisance but they don’t feel remorse or feel they did anything wrong. They made the big bucks because they were clever. One fellow actually joked (in e-mail) to his family that on his trip to Europe he found some widows and orphans in the airport to sell the garbage to.
Mike,
Yes, the system is designed to take advantage of the industrious and thrifty. It will be interesting to see what Congress comes up with. It shares a lot of the blame because it was pushing Freddie Mac and Fannie May to make risky loans. The loans allowed people to buy houses they couldn’t afford once the bubble burst.
Evan,
The trouble with low interest rates is the savers lose money due to inflation, so they’re encouraged not to save. Not all savers are rich. In the past working hard and saving was one way to improve one’s lot in this country. That’s what Mike (and we) did.
I am right now laughing about Gordon Brown and his fiasco with Mrs. Duffy. http://www.onenewspage.co.uk/topic/Mrs_Duffy.htm
This ties in nicely with what you say about the high fliers in response to BHB. This case clearly shows up politicians to be what they really are. Another breed of high flying guys who think that the electorate is a necessary and stupid evil.
.-= Rummuser´s last blog ..Joggers’ Park =-.
Rummuser,
Here’s a new cartoon. Apparently Senator McConnell says we should do nothing now but the next time there’s a crisis we should be tough and let the too-big-to-fail banks fail. Yeah, sure. 🙂
Also, banks that are too big to fail aren’t America’s only problem. The military is worried that too many young adults are too fat to fight.
Dogs are having their problems too. Pfizer just came out with a diet pill for obese canines. 🙂
I am having a great week end!
.-= Rummuser´s last blog ..Freedom Vs Independence. =-.