“Pulling an Altria” Here’s a bold prediction: Goldman Sachs won’t be around in 5 years. No, I don’t think the government is effectively going to revoke its corporate charter, putting it out of business (basically, what happened to Arthur Andersen in the wake of the Enron debacle). Nor do I think the government is going...Read More
Friedman on Goldman Sachs Tired of me (deservedly) bashing Goldman Sachs? Here’s what the eminently fair-minded Thomas L. Friedman has to say about them: The behavior of some leading Wall Street banks, particularly Goldman Sachs, has been utterly selfish. U.S. taxpayers saved Goldman by saving one of its big counterparties, A.I.G. By any fair calculation,...Read More
“Random Attacks on Enterprise & Capital” You know that Wall Street is feeling at least a little heat right now because the Op-Ed pages and blogs (at least certain ones) are ramping up their attacks on what they take to be misguided “populist fervor.” Typical on this score is David Brooks, The New York Times’...Read More
How to Break Up Goldman Sachs? Let Them Figure it Out As we drill down into the details of ideas for breaking the economic and political power of over sized banks, we need this litmus test against which serious suggestions should be judged: Does a proposal, at the end of the day, imply that Goldman...Read More
The Wall Street Journal’s Take on Wall Street President Barack Obama proposed new limits on the size and activities of the nation’s largest banks, pushing a more muscular approach toward regulation that yanked down bank stocks and raised the stakes in his campaign to show he’s tough on Wall Street. –“New Bank Rules Sink Stocks“;...Read More
Paying Tribute — Financial & Otherwise — to Wall Street’s Lords After emptying the U.S. Treasury (and then some) while crashing the global economy and pocketing billions in pay the last 18 months or so, what do you do for an encore in 2010? Before The Onion gets a hold of the idea, I thought...Read More
