Goldman Sachs - Biggest Profits Ever - How?

In case you missed it:

Goldman Sachs Goldman to make record bonus payout:

A lack of competition and a surge in revenues from trading foreign currency, bonds and fixed-income products has sent profits at Goldman Sachs soaring, according to insiders at the firm.

Staff in London were briefed last week on the banking and securities company's prospects and told they could look forward to bumper bonuses if, as predicted, it completed its most profitable year ever. Figures next month detailing the firm's second-quarter earnings are expected to show a further jump in profits. Warren Buffett, who bought $5bn of the company's shares in January, has already made a $1bn gain on his investment.

The biggest profits in their history and while they are paying back TARP funds, I note this from The Real Screw Job - AIG Used as Funnel of U.S. Taxpayer Money, Goldman Sachs received $2.5B in CDS payouts from AIG.

From Baseline Scenario:

For the pessimists, the phoenix-rising-from-the-ashes profitability of the big banks is a direct result of massive government aid in the form of cheap money, liquidity programs, and let’s not forget the bailout of AIG; it’s also the result of reduced competition resulting from the consolidation of Bear Stearns into JPMorgan, the failure of Lehman, and the weakened state of Citigroup and Bank of America/Merrill. So the government bought a partially healthy banking sector (the big question is what Citi and B of A will report) with public funds, the few winners (Goldman, JPMorgan) are more powerful than ever, and the government is hoping to get an anemic regulatory reform package through Congress in exchange.

Pretty amazing isn't it? To have the world at risk of complete collapse, meltdown, how the U.S. taxpayer must pour trillions of their own money to put out the fire immediately, only 8 months later to have one institution report their biggest profits ever?

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Remember when:

Goldman's application for bank holding company status was quickly approved in October 2008. Just in time to get their $10 billion TARP injection on October 28, 2008.

Goldman Sachs is probably the largest U.S bond dealer in the world. Their trading side is keeping them a float. Now, there is talk that they give up their bank holding status.

I give them credit they have incredible survival skills.

Schindler's List

Between the revolving door, Goldman Sachs sitting in on the AIG discussion meeting and this almost Schindler's List of who gets pumped up, who doesn't...

along with the overriding theme of "too big to fail" plus systemic risk...

I'm frankly just not impressed and the reason I'm not impressed is due to the corporate oligarchy running this country, of which obviously they are one of.

It's a power thing, very similar to Teddy Roosevelt busting up monopolies...who is running the national economy, the government or corporations?

Well, corporations are and on top of it, they are royally screwing the U.S. middle class and the national economy.

I mean it's easy to be clever when one is literally sitting in on the government's AIG bail out plan and basically running the show.

You are right.

Oligarchy is in charge.

If any congressional staffers are reading: we should investigate Goldman Sach's role in AIG bailout and other meetings in which they were present.

This is what I meant by BoA Beat Fest

FNV - Breaking the Bank.

The focus is just on BoA, when the real suspects are Hank Paulson and Goldman Sachs.

Now we know why Hank Paulson was putting clauses that there would be no resource, no consequence, no nothing on whatever he did with the TARP "management" as part of the bill.

That's what I think, but did you notice while the House is holding massive hearings this month, Barney Frank said basically they are going to use the Obama's legislation instead of writing up their own on financial regulatory reform?

That doesn't seem right at all here, they should be taking the good and adding to it and there is a lot of well researched, intelligent suggestions and not so nice about it criticism of the Obama administration's proposal.

It is time we have a true independent investigation

into Wall Street dealings. Pecora. Pecora. Pecora.

Rebel request

This is obviously one of your core issues. Frankly I cannot cover all dealings in Congress and each one requires reading the actual testimony, watching at least portions of the actual hearing Q&A, digging around in thomas.gov, etc. and is a lot of work.

I noticed that there a commission created and passed into law and then I've heard "nada, zip, nothing" and I get the feeling that "green shoots" shall prevail (true or not), and all of this is going quickly into file under "let's forget it because it ain't happening now" sort of thing.

Kind of like oil prices....nothing when the heat started to be turned on manipulation of oil futures....the commodities market crashed and you now hear nothing on this issue.

I totally forgot about that.

And that is what Congress and the Administration want - that we forget about it: Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. This commission was created under Section 5 of the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act of 2009.

Some progress with Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission

Nominees emerge but still no formal announcement and the clock is ticking.

A short list of names has emerged for the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission that includes former Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson; former Democratic head of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission Brooksley Born; and Alex Pollock, a fellow at the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Congress last month created the 10-member commission to study how fraud, regulatory lapses, monetary policy, accounting, lending practices and executive pay contributed to the worst U.S. financial crisis since the Great Depression.