Thursday, November 13, 2008

The Games Goldman Sachs Plays

I've never gotten the bad taste out of my mouth from the CNBC Fast Money programs where all of the traders were flopping around in blind praise of Goldman Sachs and it's brilliant (ie. ruthless) operation.

Well, here's some of that brilliance. Part of that business model appears to be betting against products that other Goldman Sachs employees are selling. The firm did the same thing with home mortgage securities. That way they play both ends. Goldman sells junk for big money, shorts what they know will quickly fail and makes a profits at both ends. Let us not forget, that is the company where treasury Secretary Henry Paulson made his $700 million. How is that less criminal than a Nigerian email scam?

Goldman-related Update:
A nice article that touches on this "Goldman as a god" fantasy floating around. Seems like Paulson's boy wonder isn't getting such grand reviews. The article also tends to support the talent versus salary post I have up. What talent do these Wall Street guys really have? They are supposed to be the best in the financial business, but they just seem like a bunch of cowboy speculators to me. They don't actually seem to understand the fundamentals of banking or of managing people. When nothing makes any sense, I consider the possibility of criminal activity.

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