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Goldman Engineered 'Every Market Manipulation' Post-Depression

By Wesley Oliver,  Newser Staff

Posted Jul 5, 2009 12:30 PM CDT
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(Newser) – The recession has been good to Goldman Sachs: The world’s most powerful investment bank snatched $10 billion in TARP funds, reclaimed $13 billion from AIG, watched archrival Lehman Brothers disintegrate, and found alumni spearheading Washington’s economic rescue effort. But this isn’t new, Matt Taibbi writes in a scathing Rolling Stone explainer, since Goldman “has engineered every major market manipulation since the Great Depression.”

And Goldman is at it again, now with the cap-and-trade “environmental plan,” Taibbi says: “The new carbon-credit market is a virtual repeat of the commodities-market casino that's been kind to Goldman, except it has one delicious new wrinkle: The rise in prices will be government-mandated. Goldman won't even have to rig the game. It will be rigged in advance.”

Goldman Sachs Chairman and CEO Lloyd Blankfein testifies before the House Financial Services Committee.
Goldman Sachs Chairman and CEO Lloyd Blankfein testifies before the House Financial Services Committee.   (Getty Images)
In this Sept. 25, 2008 file photo, Lloyd C. Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs, speaks at a luncheon at United Nations headquarters.
In this Sept. 25, 2008 file photo, Lloyd C. Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs, speaks at a luncheon at United Nations headquarters.   (AP Photo/David Karp, file)
In this Feb. 11, 2009 file photo, Goldman Sachs CEO and Chairman Lloyd C. Blankfein and JPMorgan Chase CEO James Dimon testify on Capitol Hill before the House Financial Services Committee.
In this Feb. 11, 2009 file photo, Goldman Sachs CEO and Chairman Lloyd C. Blankfein and JPMorgan Chase CEO James Dimon testify on Capitol Hill before the House Financial Services Committee.   (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, file)
In this Sept. 16, 2008 file photo, a man walks out of Goldman Sachs headquarters Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2008 in New York.
In this Sept. 16, 2008 file photo, a man walks out of Goldman Sachs headquarters Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2008 in New York.   (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, file)
Lloyd Blankfein, right, CEO of Goldman Sachs, and Eric Dinallo, center, superintendent of the New York State Insurance Department, talk with an unidentified man as they enter the New York Stock Exchange for a panel discussion Friday, Oct. 10, 2008 in New York.
Lloyd Blankfein, right, CEO of Goldman Sachs, and Eric Dinallo, center, superintendent of the New York State Insurance Department, talk with an unidentified man as they enter the New York Stock Exchange...   (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)
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The world's most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money. - Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone

If America is circling the drain, Goldman Sachs has found a way to be that drain. - Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone

The collective message of all of this — the AIG bailout, the swift approval for its bank-holding conversion, the TARP funds — is that when it comes to Goldman Sachs, there isn't a free market at all. - Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone

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COMMENTS
Showing 3 of 10 comments
Derni
Jul 6, 2009 12:34 PM CDT
the stimulus money never made it down to the consumer-try to get a home loan with a good credit rating-its a joke-wait to the gas guzzler law kicks in-the car cokpanies will sell but rip us off again-they want to make that 3,500 or 4,500 plus whatever they can-they don't just want to move cars-credit card companies are changing all the % rates before the new laew kicks in so the consumer has already benn raped-no one watching where the money is and what it does-but as goes the housing market so goes the economy-and right now thats in the toilet-and I don't expect anyone to fix it soon-republican or democrat-we took 8 years to get into this ness -or more-we ain't gettin out in 1 year
brawne
Jul 6, 2009 1:46 AM CDT
I don't think that oligarchy was quite the word Reader was going for--or business.
ChickenChopper
Jul 5, 2009 11:52 AM CDT
we know it, call it a 5th sense...we can read. no one one purposely type your sh*t without believing it, cloudysight

 
Barack Obama • cap and trade • Goldman Sachs • Henry Paulson • AIG • TARP

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