Even with the Benefit of Hindsight ... Who Knew?
Hindsight, they say, is 20/20 - but who today can say they KNEW last fall that Goldman Sachs would rake in tons of money since becoming a bank holding company? Certainly not me. I absolutely cannot brag about my prescient vision in this matter. I totally believed that when they transformed from high rolling investment bank to boring but regulated bank they'd be scaling down the risk, and thus, the scale of their profits. Here's how Goldman characterized the shift in a press release: “'While accelerated by market sentiment, our decision to be regulated by the Federal Reserve is based on the recognition that such regulation provides its members with full prudential supervision and access to permanent liquidity and funding,' said Lloyd C. Blankfein, Chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs." I bought the story that regulation would provide "prudential supervision." So did the Wall Street Journal : "With the move, Wall Street as it has long been kn...