I find it very ironic that governments around the world attack GS for shorting subprime. Yes, securitization fuelled an appettite for borrowing, but it didn't create the bubble in the housing market, in the CRE and in personal borrowings. Governments should have regulated borrowing instead of encouraging it. They should have set a minimum downpayment of 30% for housing purchase for instance. They encouraged borrowing because everybody should be a home owner for instance. Prudence was not encouraged by governments. Now, they need someone to blame for their failure and someone to pay for their mistakes. It now looks like shorting subprime will be recategorized as a crime. Every action that threatens the unravelling of the card castle will be punished. This is statism with a big dose of big brother. He who doesn't abide or play the game will be suppressed.
And will AIG remit that money back to the Taxpayer, who paid those losses? Or will AIG keep that 6 Billion for itself? These AIG clowns are looking to cash in off the taxpayers dime. AGAIN. Unbelievable corruption.
wow that is some seriously professional spin control. How about this. The Fed is owned by the regional fed banks. The shareholders of the regional fed banks are bankers. Those bankers encouraged the Fed to allow lax lending standards during a bubble -- making the bubble 10 times larger than it every should have been. With the largest profits in earths history because of the incredible amount of lending going on... Wall street was able to buy off the government officials in charge of regulating them. Just ask Barney Frank's lover at Indymac or ask why Dodd got special loans form Mozillo who was the front for much of those wall street loans. We need glass steagall and let wall street get back to taking risks with its own money not the taxpayers.
GS is done for. If the market should break, easy $100 to the downside from here. Maybe more if it pulls a LEH