Goldman Boasted of 'Serious Money' Amid Crash

E-mails released today by a Senate panel show top executives at Goldman Sachs boasting about the money the firm was making as the national housing market collapsed in 2007. The e-mails suggest Goldman benefited from its bets that securities backed by subprime mortgages would lose value, and they seem to contradict previous statements by the investment bank that it lost money on the securities. Their release comes ahead of Tuesday's hearing on Capitol Hill.

• "Of course we didn't dodge the mortgage mess," CEO Lloyd Blankfein wrote in an e-mail dated Nov. 18, 2007. "We lost money, then made more than we lost because of shorts.
• "Tells you what might be happening to people who don't have the big short," CFO David Viniar on July 25, 2007, noting that Goldman would make more than $50 million in one day.
• "Sounds like we will make some serious money," executive Donald Mullen, October 2007. This one from MSNBC.

(More Goldman Sachs stories.)