On Tuesday Lloyd Blankfein and a bunch of other Goldman $achs higher-ups were called in front on a Senate hearing committee do discuss their role in the financial meltdown on 2008. Of course TOR was watching as our beloved Senators tried to outdo one another for a little bit of prime-time glory.

At one point during an exchange with some senators I couldn't avoid thinking Blankfein would channel Vizzini and start screaming out "inconceivable"
Now nobody should feel that bad for "doing God's work" Blankfein who collected $9 million in compensation last year as the crisis which he helped create, drove the national unemployment rate to 10% and destroyed 401k's, retirement values and ostensibly housing values. Yeah I understand that in capitalism you have to be one step ahead of your competition but when you are selling jive to your own customers as Abacus was, you can't be sleeping well at night. This is the equivalent of trying to shark some 90 year old grandma out of her fixed income check by lying, cheating and scare tactics.. I understand that everybody should be doing research before they invest but isn't this exactly why you hire Goldman Sachs? who the hell could know that they are setting up financial IED's? Aren't they the ones that are supposed to be working for you, not setting up complex derivative cocktails intended to explode in your face.

Every radio-ad you hear about any investment tool concludes it ad with 'prior outcomes don't guarantee future results' but GS's ads should have said that the only certainty there was is that somebody will be pissed off and it won't be Goldman.

Years ago it was a popular notion that what was "good for GM was good for the country", you may argue against it but it's surely more true than GS being good for this country (or the EU with Greece for that matter).

I know one thing, when push came to shove it during war-time Detroit outfitted their plants to aid the war effort while 70 years later Goldman Sachs along with their fellow banking buddies stalled the economy to near Depression levels. They couldn't turn their machinery over to help the country because they don't make anything, this is where the US economy will continue to be fragile and vulnerable. When everything you "make" is smoke and mirrors and when all your gains are only gains on paper you are not only not adding anything of value but actually diluting the little value of actually creating something. . We already have a Fed who prints money and the FBI trying to stop counterfeiting and but somehow our banks are essentially printing and counterfeiting billions by the day.

So I implore everybody who says that regulation of the financial sector will crush innovation in the sector to answer one question.
What kind of innovation are you creating when it's all built on quick-sand anyway?
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry