Ha ha ha...score one for the little guy!

Goldman commits all kinds of crime: fraud, market manipulation, insider trading and nothing happens. Maybe...MAYBE...they pay some fines.

But when some low level programmer leaves the firm Goldman accuses the guy of stealing their precious high frequency trading code and the prosecutors and cops are right there to arrest this kid. He's gotta defend himself through not one, but TWO trials and he's found innocent each time.

I am happy for the kid, but his life is probably still ruined while the real criminals go on doing what they've been doing--ripping off everyone. (Or as Lloyd Blankfein calls it, "God's work.")

Mary Thompson — This how Goldman Sachs is doing 'God's work' now

Because stability.

CNBC NetNet
This how Goldman Sachs is doing 'God's work' now
Mary Thompson

Matthew Zeitlin — Goldman Sachs CEO: “Income Inequality Is A Very Destabilizing Thing In The Country”

The CEO of Goldman Sachs thinks the economy isn’t doing enough to benefit those at the lowest end of the income spectrum. Lloyd Blankfein, in an interview with CBS, said that income inequality is “destabilizing” and “responsible for the divisions in the country.” Calling it a “very big issue … that has to be dealt with,” Blankfein said that whether or not the economy grows faster, “too much of the GDP over the last generation has gone to too few of the people.”

BuzzFeed
Goldman Sachs CEO: “Income Inequality Is A Very Destabilizing Thing In The Country”
Matthew Zeitlin
(h/t Brad DeLong)

Big time financial fraudsters going to jail!

No it's not Jamie Dimon or Lloyd Blankfein or anyone from Bank of America or HSBC. It's Real Housewives' stars Joe and Theresa Giudice. The both took a plea and one of them (probably Joe) will be spending the next 3-4 years in jail.

For fraud.

Now please square that in your head against the massive, decade-long (or longer) frauds, money laundering and illegal market manipulations of the major banks--WHO ADMITTED TO THESE THINGS.

Not a single banker is going to jail, but a couple of two-bit reality TV stars? Yep, they're getting locked up.

Shows you how corrupt (and bought) the system is.

America the Beautiful? I don't think Ray Charles meant it this way.

Lloyd Blankfein: Bond bubble is looming

This is mind blowing. Here's the guy running the biggest investment bank in world, whose firm trades billions $$ in bonds each day and he doesn't understand that the Fed sets interest rates and can keep the Treasury market bid and rates at zero for as long as it wants.

And he says this, on a day when the Fed literally is handing bond traders its "playbook," saying it won't raise rates until the unemployment rate dips below 6.5%. So invfestors have a green light to stay long bonds or refrain from shorting until then.

But Blankfein is worried about an imminent bubble. These Wall Street titans really don't know what they're talking about. They really, really, don't. It's amazing that they make the kind of money they do.

"I think that is one of the big risks that are looming out there right now," says Blankfein. But while low interest rates have been great for corporate borrowers, Blankfein says it may also be creating losses that we will have to deal with later. "Someone is buying that debt," says Blankfein. "What's going to happen when growth picks up and interest rates rise? There's going to be a reversal and people will have losses."

Christina Wilkie and Ryan Grim — CEO Council Demands Cuts To Poor, Elderly

The corporate CEOs who have made a high-profile foray into deficit negotiations have themselves been substantially responsible for the size of the deficit they now want closed.

The companies represented by executives working with the Campaign To Fix The Debt have received trillions in federal war contracts, subsidies and bailouts, as well as specialized tax breaks and loopholes that virtually eliminate the companies' tax bills.

The CEOs are part of a campaign run by the Peter Peterson-backed Center for a Responsible Federal Budget, which plans to spend at least $30 million pushing for a deficit reduction deal in the lame-duck session and beyond.

During the past few days, CEOs belonging to what the campaign calls its CEO Fiscal Leadership Council -- most visibly, Goldman Sachs' Lloyd ["Doing God's Work"] Blankfein and Honeywell's David Cote -- have barnstormed the media, making the case that the only way to cut the deficit is to severely scale back social safety-net programs -- Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security -- which would disproportionately impact the poor and the elderly.

As part of their push, they are advocating a "territorial tax system" that would exempt their companies' foreign profits from taxation, netting them about $134 billion in tax savings, according to a new report from the Institute for Policy Studies titled "The CEO Campaign to ‘Fix’ the Debt: A Trojan Horse for Massive Corporate Tax Breaks" -- money that could help pay off the federal budget deficit.

Yet the CEOs are not offering to forgo federal money or pay a higher tax rate, on their personal income or corporate profits. Instead, council recommendations include cutting "entitlement" programs, as well as what they call "low-priority spending."

This is what they mean by "expanding the tax base." Just say no, and tell your senators and the presidente to just say no, too.

The Huffington Post
CEO Council Demands Cuts To Poor, Elderly While Reaping Billions In Government Contracts, Tax Breaks
Christina Wilkie and Ryan Grim

Lloyd Blankfein weighs in for a Grand Bargain

The Obama administration should model itself after the Roosevelt administration during the Great Depression and World War Two, Goldman Sachs Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein said in an opinion piece published Tuesday evening on the Wall Street Journal website.

In the 1930s there was "extreme bitterness between the business community and the Roosevelt administration," Blankfein wrote. Corporate executives deplored President Franklin Roosevelt's policies. Roosevelt, in turn, said he welcomed their hatred.

Yet, the two sides eventually worked together, spurring a colossal increase in industrial production that lifted the U.S. out of the Great Depression and crushed its enemies.

Blankfein sees a similar opportunity now, and wants the Obama administration and the corporate community to compromise and reconcile so as not to derail the fragile recovery....

"Broadening the personal income-tax base by closing loopholes will generate substantial additional revenue while minimizing increases in marginal rates that could stifle risk-taking and robust growth."

Blankfein also stressed the importance of restoring confidence in public finance by implementing spending cuts, entitlement reform and revenue increases. He also wrote that tax increases, especially for the wealthiest, are appropriate so long as they are accompanied by serious cuts in government spending and entitlements.

Can Jamie Dimon be far behind?

The Huffington Post
Lloyd Blankfein On Fiscal Cliff: Obama Needs To Channel FDR
Reuters

Lots of other CEO's also chiming in. But the problem is that they are demanding debt reduction long term. While they are not deficit hawks, they are deficit doves. That doesn't augur well for the "Grand Bargain" as they pressure the president and other representatives of the people.

The Huffington Post
CEOs Sound Off On Dangers Of The Fiscal Cliff

Reuters

Lloyd Blankfein: "We advise people on things like fiscal cliffs" Oh really, Lloyd??

Goldman CEO, Lloyd Blankfein, in another of his long list of memorable statements ("We do God's work") just came up with a new one today. When speaking of the fiscal cliff with CNBC’s Steve Liesman (see Matt Franko's previous post), he warned that we need to take steps to avoid going over the cliff.

Blankfein authoritatively said that his firm “advised people on things like fiscal cliffs.” Well what kind of advice would that be, Lloyd? Why is it that you and other financial executives (Jamie Dimon, Brian Moynihan, Larry Fink, Bill Ackman and others) are listening to the fake crisis clown show of people like Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, who are demanding their own version of a fiscal cliff to “solve” the fiscal cliff? They’re pushing for American brand austerity.

If these people are so smart how come they don’t see that these measures, now being employed in Europe, have had disastrous consequences and have not eradicated deficits, but instead, have led to massive unemployment and ongoing recession? This is their prescription for avoiding bad times? Sounds like the medicine is worse than whatever purported illness we have.