Asiaprop: You are saying blame the govenment, not Goldman, but for the last 20 years, Goldman has BEEN the government. It did not matter if the letter was D or R, the party of Goldman$ ascended with Reagan and never left. I believe the overreaching in the affairs of foreign nations that you decry is a symptom of the very takeover of our system by financial interests that we are concerned about. Many many of us were opposed to going to war with the only place in the middle east where a woman could appear without Mufta, do business, and get a beer without being hassled, especially since there was no evidence that Iraq was involved with Sept 11 in any way. No the Chicago School boys were eager to do another "Shock and Awe" restructuring of a country that had oil and many state enterprises that they felt they could steal for a song and pump for a huge profit,, the Iranian People just did not cooperate . What you don't seem to understand is that Goldman had clearly bought the government back before the Clinton Administration. Greenspan was Goldman's man and it is documented that they campaigned to keep CDSs off the regulatory radar at least since 92, and probably before that. Now I know that you consider this a neat coup. But come on, WE have to live here. And they take full advantage of the Calvinistic "Social Darwinism" meme " we are rich because we are smart" rather than "we are rich because we made it legal to fleece unions out of their pension funds by working with hedge funds to take over the companies they work for and strip them of their assets, over and over again. " So while we were inventing HSLA steel, and microchips, Goldman was inventing the art of stripping the productive industrial economy, blaming it on the unions and wrapping the whole thing in an An Rayn thesis flag. Uck. The history of America is very different from what you think. My family was here from 150 years before their WAS a USA. In a sparely settled landscape every human is/was seen as valuable. The norm was that People helped each other. This thing of turning you back on your neighbor is a thing that people do where people are crowded and compete for scarce resources. It is not so much from here. Many of us remember a pot-luck supper and a barn raising, our word being our bond and living in the community that we built for better or worse and we are not pleased with the sharp hard and ethically challenged turn the country has taken. We want to take our government BACK from Goldman.
I read your post in full, accept your own personal ideas but I dont agree. And to be honest I dont think someone will be able to change your opinion about this. I believe you actually give GS way too much kudos. They are by far not as powerful as you may think. You seem to promote them to some sort of super power right next to God.
I can understand your anti-American sentiment but your anger is misguided. It should be guided toward the US Government, not the US People. The citizens of this country do not have any say in what the government does and we have almost no say about who runs the country. We get to vote for candidates who are delivered to us that appear to come from two seperate parties. An independent candidate cannot run for office because of the road blocks the current people of power have put in place. It is out of reach for anyone who is not currently connected to the system. Goldman Sachs runs our government and they have their people in offices in charge of regulating their activities. It puzzles me that you are blaming some "arrogant prick" for the state of the nation yet you applaud the actions of the most powerful bank in the world -- the very bank that occupies many of the seats that are responsible for government policy, the government policy for which you have so much loathe.
ahhh, come on buddy, even you should see that there is no connection between Goldman and any government actions other than finance related issues. And what you said is not absolutely true. There were independent guys running for office before but nobody gave a darn. By the way, I dont harbor any anti-American sentiment but I dont accept some country-side clown (not you) telling others to shut up about American finance and politics while his country is having its stinky finger in pretty much every international conflict there is and right after his country has been bailed out by Chinese and others holding hundreds of billions of dollars in US debt to financing his exuberance. What a hypocrisy.
As far as Goldman goes I think we can agree to disagree. The rest of your views of America are somewhat accurate but be careful not to fall into the stereotypical trap. It is true that some people in America are fat, lazy, uneducated, and arrogant (I know you didn't say all this) but the majority of Americans are fit, hard-working, well-educated, and rather humble. Heck, some of us even hablar un segundo idioma.
Asia: Not god, but I have seen the country devolve into a worship of the power of money, a focus the Avatar of our most common religion warned against vehemently. Needle Camel, that stuff. The airwaves, Newspapers and other media outlets used to be considered the 4th branch of government, the one that was supposed to keep the others honest. Radio/TV spectra was public domain and anyone exploiting them had a responsibility to use them in a way that contributed to the common good. There was something called the FAIRNESS DOCTRINE and an equal time provision. Then the meme changed. We had a Supreme Court ruling that money equaled free speech. The monied had the airwaves sold to themselves. Because all Senate and many congressional districts are so spread out a couple of million for TV is needed to have a chance to for congress. One way and another Corps have made it legal for them to buy congress. Only in the urban districts where distances are not so great can the population actually see their congressman , and those districts vote very differently than the money and TV controlled districts. Most of the TV controlled districts pretty much vote the Gold party line, unless like Vermont they have a strong "folk mute" tradition.
up yours, you stupid gook, if you're in asia it wasnt even your money, so fuck off <img src = "http://www.kaichang.net/images/abc9_1.jpg"> <img src = "http://helium.lunarpages.com/~funky4/pictures/ironleg/charley.jpg"> <img src = "http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/38/Coolieusa.jpg">