April 25, 2010, Cry me a river
Well, whaddaya know? It seems that those real estate declines on which the masters of the universe Goldman Sachs claims it lost money as a "defense" among other things to the recent S.E.C. civil enforcement action against it.,.. were, surprise,, surprise, in fact very profitable to the firm, because, because of course, the game is rigged, and Goldman could short the real estate market knowing bloody well it could bring it down itself if it had to to make sure the firm (and more importantly, certain individuals) profited extremely handsomely. That's how a rigged game works. The only suckers are the rest of us... whether we chose to play, or not!
The only question is whether anyone will be the least surprised that when the rules are "I keep the profits and you pay for the losses," that the titans of Wall Street always managed to make lots of money out of it. ALWAYS.
We will continue to wait and see just how much effort the Obama Administration will put into its financial reform efforts (hopefully as much effort as I put in to finishing yesterday's tiny but spectacular -- and spectacularly hilly-- Sibyl Ludington 50-K, my second 50-K this year-- and ever; that is, a slow but steady slog that while not pretty, got the job done). The smart money (!) says that a President whose own career has been bankrolled by financial interests is probably engaging in a kabuki, but since my old classmate is the only game in town, we can at least hope he has some sincerity on this issue. The fact remains that an extraordinary amount of taxpayer money has been committed to propping up Wall Street firms, and yet, no reform at all designed to prevent a recurrence of the '08 financial collapse is yet in place... Republican opposition to this reform, like any initiative of the Obama Administration, can best be summarized as "He's still Black, isn't he?" So, we'll see if a few Republicans are willing to at least try to save what's left of our economy and go along with at least some necessary reform... and hope that reform is more than a kabuki. What else can you do?
This has been... "cry me a river.