Catherine Austin Fitts' Mapping the Real Deal
Goldman, God & the Great Vampire Squid
Goldman Sachs has a political problem and the tension is rising daily as the housing market continues to swoon and
unemployment grows.
Goldman’s business model is simple.
The investment bank uses taxpayer credit to engage in high risk speculation for its own account in a manner that
prevents capital from circulating to the real economy.
This results in huge profits which Goldman uses to pay billions in bonuses to Goldman partners and bankers.
It also causes falling income and increased bankruptcies in small and medium size business which increases unemployment.
With unemployment over 10%, lots of educated people have the time to unpack and explain the Goldman model to everyone
else. Consequently, Goldman’s business is de-mystifying daily in the blogosphere.
Throwing salt on open wounds, Goldman’s chairman recently said that they were doing “God’s work.
The response was not positive. Maureen Dowd of the New York Times quoted Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi, who labeled Goldman “a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its
blood funnel into anything that smells like money.”
Then the TARP Inspector General nailed Secretary Geithner for shoveling money into Goldman through the AIG bailout.
Goldman countered by announcing that it was giving $500 million away to 10,000 small businesses while a number of
Congressmen called for Geithner’s resignation.
The response was again not positive. Mark Gilbert, the London bureau chief for Bloomberg, wrote:
“Here’s another way of looking at this sudden burst of supposed generosity. Goldman has $16.7 billion stashed in its
bonus pot from the record profit earned in the first nine months of the year, which works out at $527,192 per staffer.”
“That means those 10,000 small businesses the securities firm says it wants to help are worth the equivalent of about
1,000 Goldman employees. Alternatively, a Goldmanite’s average contribution to society is pitched at the equivalent of
10 small enterprises, based on that bonus-versus-charity calculation.”
“Even at the Stakhanovite work rates the firm legendarily squeezes out of its staff, that’s quite a stretch. The idea
that one banker is worth 10 businesses is the kind of math that got us into this mess, with finance falsely elevated
until it became an end in itself, rather than a means to providing services to the real economy.”
“The public isn’t likely to fall for this charade.”
Gilbert than ends his brilliant math lesson by also invoking Matt Taibbi’s label that Goldman is “a great vampire squid
wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.”
Sounds like Goldman is getting a new brand.
To top things off, Goldman’s investors were hoping for vampire squid-like returns. Dismayed at payouts to bankers and
philanthropy, they want a bigger piece of the pie.
Will the vampire squid get strangled by its own tentacles? After all, as the Chairman pointed out, there is a God. Stay
tuned…
November 20, 2009
Yahoo News
November 19, 2009
The Wall Street Journal
November 19, 2009
Zero Hedge
November 18, 2009
November 17, 2009
See November 17 Report by TARP Inspector General
November 17, 2009
CBS News
November 11, 2009
Virtuous Bankers? Really!?! New York Times
November 07, 2009
The Wall Street Journal
November 06, 2009
Yahoo Finance
November 03, 2009
The New York Times
Recent Solari Commentaries on Goldman Sachs:
November 19, 2009
November 2, 2009
October 21, 2009
October 20, 2009
October 1, 2009
May 4, 2009
April 16, 2009
March 18, 2009
February 5, 2009
*************
Mapping The Real Deal is a column on Scoop supervised by Catherine Austin Fitts. Ms Fitts is the President of Solari, Inc. http://www.solari.com/. Ms. Fitts is the former Assistant Secretary of Housing-Federal Housing Commissioner during the first Bush Administration, a former managing director and member of the board of directors of Dillon Read “ Co. Inc. and President of The Hamilton Securities Group, Inc.
****ENDS*****