Mr. Levin made good points to Mr. Blankfein when he tell him if he funded some of the lenders, then buy their bundles of loan, then sell the loans, he must know this lenders make VERY bad loans.(due dilligence?) And then GS sell with the AAA rating to (instituitions that can only invest in the AAA) pensions, endowments... Look like Mr. Blankfein will blame the sale people.
Note to government. If you really want to nail GS find out what their EQUITY shorts were. And also how about the CDS they shorted on financials? not even mentioned. LOL Man these people are beyond stupid to think they will outsmart GS brains.
I thought these lowlife braindead Senators demeaned the institution by using the word shitty so many times. Levin acted like a little kid who had just learned a new cuss word. Trashy bastard.
I was thinking the same thing. I realize that the "man on the street" doesn't understand almost any of this, but to me, the senators came off looking really stupid. I don't know, just saying.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The senators not traders. So they keep saying short positions are bad because they do not understand the market maker. So they put the focus to the wrong action. My opinion is the beginning when the investment bank KNOW they buy JUNK, then sell with the AAA. This is the crime to me. Blankfein never say he knows this is the junk, BUT he say he have to (compete) in this time with other big investment banks. Then he say Goldman Sachs is the (Last) to do this kind of bad loan business. And he feel he have to compete in this world of RMBS.
This was a farce. A MM takes both sides of a transaction, that's their fucking job. I am so disappointed in the political system right now I don't know where to begin.
This Telethon today was to influence as many people as possible to support their reform bill that they are trying to push through this week. What they didn't anticipate though was how utterly incompetent Goldman would make them look. They asked questions they did not understand and got answers they didn't understand. It wasn't Goldman that caused the housing market to collapse. Tons of people saw this coming. We were all talking about it back in 2004.
McCain asked Blankfein loaded questions, the answers were an opening for Blankfein to cite philanthropic & positive GS points.