In his
NY Times OpEd piece, published shortly after Matt Taibbi's great, if slightly hyperbolic, article in
Rolling Stone, Noble Prize winning economist Paul Krugman writes this about Goldman Sachs and other
playahs, lending much credibility to Taibbi's charges and arguments.
"Goldman’s role in the financialization of America was similar to that of other players, except for one thing: Goldman didn’t believe its own hype. Other banks invested heavily in the same toxic waste they were selling to the public at large. Goldman, famously, made a lot of money selling securities backed by subprime mortgages — then made a lot more money by selling mortgage-backed securities short, just before their value crashed. All of this was perfectly legal, but the net effect was that Goldman made profits by playing the rest of us for suckers."
If you don't believe that, listen to Tom Ashbrook's hour dedicated to this subject during his
On Point radio program. His guests are Taibbi and Charles Ellis. If you think Taibbi is up-in-the-night, listen to how hard it is for Ellis, a consummate Wall Street insider, to defend the indefensible.
