No matter how much money is in the bag, STILL on The Highway To Hell.

p.s. With NO EXIT strategy.

Oh, there was a fog all right, but it wasn't war. It was the dust kicked up by a thousand mistresses, threatening to leave their paunchy white asses.

I think we oughta ship Lloyd and the rest off to Afghanistan, so they can learn the difference. The Bankers' Battalion has an awfully nice ring to it.

He was holding a lot more than 10 billion...The money that GSachs got from AIG has to be taken into account...I forget what the actual number was but I think it was something like 20 billion...If the US tax payer didn't bailout AIG Goldman Sachs would be out of business regardless of the 10 billion they got directly from us.-Tony

Nice, Mike of A.

My eyes get damp when I think about how those poor ceo's are being victimized by the cruel academics with their Ph.D.'s. Why are academics paid so much and ceo's so little?!! Although the bailouts have certainly been effective in giving incomprehensible sums of money to Wallstreet, just about every economist was opposed to how they were done; there was certainly no "fog of war" hiding the problems with the bailouts. A "fog of propaganda" is another matter.

As economist Michael Hudson wrote in one of his articles, nothing in politics happens by accident.

My eyes get damp when I think about how those poor ceo's are being victimized by the cruel academics with their Ph.D.'s. Why are academics paid so much and ceo's so little?!! Although the bailouts have certainly been effective in giving incomprehensible sums of money to Wallstreet, just about every economist was opposed to how they were done; there was certainly no "fog of war" hiding the problems with the bailouts. A "fog of propaganda" is another matter.

As economist Michael Hudson wrote in one of his articles, nothing in politics happens by accident.

I assume you've all ready Taibi's latest about the OTC life insurance derivatives. Assuming it's accurate, I sometimes wonder if GS is looking to get shutdown.

Video-taping this crime spree was the best idea we ever had!

i will be starting my phd dissertation sooner rather than later, myself... i'm thinking now i might include this blankfein quote as a chapter epigraph, if i can manage to work it in.

"if you look at the constellation of the things done, it was very effective."

The Big Hitters of Finance are already well over half of the way back to the same arrogant attitudes that led them to think all the hard problems in macroeconomics have been solved . . .

(http://www.federalreserve.gov/BOARDDOCS/SPEECHES/2004/20040220/default.htm)

. . . so they don't have to worry much about being wrong.

Huffington Post had a fine article yesterday on how a huge amount of research is now funded by the Fed. And so it doesn't challenge the Fed too much. So when Bernanke et al concluded that "the sources of the Great Moderation will continue to be an area for fruitful analysis and debate," he meant that lots of researchers hired by the Fed could pat the Fed on the back for being so good at what they do.

Vanguardists like Blankfein or George W. Bush or Castro are always so smug that history will absolve them. It is just a question of waiting for the next seven generations to be dead before their actions will be seen in the proper perspective.

The Bankers' Battalion has an awfully nice ring to it.

Mike of Angle, have you perchance looked at this:

Consultants: Help Wanted in Afghanistan

How would most senior management teams handle these problems? In today's competitive business space, chances are they would go outside the organization for highly skilled, industry knowledgeable, impartial consultants to work with them to solve strategic-level inefficiencies.

Now consider that this troubled company is actually NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). ISAF (the "Coalition") faces real business problems in Afghanistan and are pressured by a global audience to make significant progress by the end of 2010. The Coalition is at a tipping point and should use every resource available to improve their bottom line — promote stability and support security sector reforms throughout Afghanistan. Who are they bringing in to help them expand, operate efficiently, measure success, and develop a unified strategy?...

...

The Coalition should look outside to readily available management and strategy consultants. These consultants would provide unbiased expertise to address strategic business problems in an otherwise military doctrine-oriented organization. The similarities between Afghanistan's conflict challenges and those of a troubled business are striking. With improved business processes, disparate and uncoordinated stakeholders in Afghanistan could effectively align and extend the value of their time and money.

Strategy consultants could solve many problems for the Coalition. One example is in aligning disparate strategies. ...

The profiteers. God bless them.