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Friday, April 16, 2010

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Posted by jurassicpork | 5:23 PM

Someone reminded me I once said "Greed is good". Now it seems it's legal. Because everyone is drinking the same Kool Aid. - Gordon Gecko, Wall Street II: Money Never Sleeps

Not to me, to Goldman Sachs to help pay their legal expenses. The Libr'al Blue Meanies at the Securities and Exchange Commission are after them. One can only breathe a sigh of relief that the Obama Justice Department hasn't also filed civil or, God forbid, criminal charges against them.

And just in time for Gordon Gecko's return to society. Thank God the Gecko, Wall Street's most liberal capitalist, is back, fresh out of prison with a brand new suit, $20 in his pocket and a $500 haircut to reinstruct Wall Street in the Old School ways of capitalistic greed.

Now there's a professional scumbag your kids in business college can emulate, an old fashioned corporate raider who was content with merely buying up failing companies and putting just a couple of thousand people at a time out of work by liquidating the company's assets instead of building it up.

No risky derivative speculation for that good old, boy, no siree. Because Gordon fucking Gecko, a guy who makes gecko lizards change their names and pretend they're skinks, wouldn't think to help take down the nation's entire housing market by selling to investors worthless toxic assets then pick the ones he knew would fail and then to bet against them like a sweaty boxing manager with gravy and bourbon stains on his tie giving up on his aging prize fighter.

Yet the guy who did that, hedge fund manager John A. Paulson (no relation to Bullethead Hank), somehow wasn't named in the SEC's civil suit even though Goldman Sachs allowed him to pick those toxic bonds as the ones likeliest to tank while lying to the investors and claiming an independent manager would choose them. Which is riskier than insider trading only more daring and adventurous. We should reward the man for having such brass cajones, not almost naming him in a civil suit. Because, after all, where we would we be without risk takers and their two hands willing to bet the savings and assets of millions? Their only fault was in thinking a little too big and what Wall Street needs is Gordon Gecko to tell them to scale back their sweeping ambitions and be content with making a billion a year instead of three.

So please, for the love of God, who will look out for the billionaires if not us? Legal fees are expensive and even a single corporation that made billions by sitting idly by and watching the housing bubble go kaboom without warning anybody and profiting off their casino capitalism can do so much on their own. Goldman Sachs' top executives have a legal slush fund of only $2,000,000 a year and that can disappear in the blink of an eye.

Because the last thing we need in this country is more risk-taking capitalists like Gordon Gecko in federal prison and being forced to play 18 or even nine holes on sub-par golf courses.

Note: If in the interests of understanding this complicated kerfuffle it helps to have pictures, here's a comprehensive overview of the housing bubble that Goldman Sachs and John Paulson had bet would burst.
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