Yesterday's Goldman Testimony

No matter what your political orientation, after yesterday's hearing, I find it impossible to believe that
the Senate has enough knowledge of how markets work to enact effective financial reform legislation.
The panel's questioning showed such a total lack of insight that any laws passed will likely have gaping holes
to be exploited or act to seriously damage the nation's capital markets.

Fab Tourre of Goldman Sachs

Fab Morvan of Milli Vanilli

And They All Lived Happily Ever After

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded

Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed

Everybody knows that the war is over

Everybody knows the good guys lost

Everybody knows the fight was fixed

The poor stay poor, the rich get rich

That's how it goes

Everybody knows

-Leonard Cohen, "Everybody Knows"
 
 
It shouldn't be a surprise that Goldman Sachs (and most other investment banks) put their proprietary traders and favored clients ahead of serving their more typical, slow money, vanilla institutional or high net-worth customers. If you think otherwise, you just have your head in the sand. When commissions get squeezed and transparency vanishes, ask yourself how the IBanks are making their profits. They are not in the business of giving money away nor even doing the right thing on a consistent basis. They are smart and they are greedy.
When you combine that with opaque financial statements and extremely sophisticated technology, you have to assume you may frequently be getting your pocket picked.