The Goldman Fleece....
So Mother Jones has an interesting article offering "an insider's view of Wall Street's rebound" written by former Goldman employee Nomi Prins. What we need to know - according to Prins - is that numbers lie. And if you look past the PR, past Goldman's congratulatory pat on its own back for paying back the $10 billion TARP loan, you'll see that Goldman's profits wouldn't exist (nor would the company) without the massive access to federal subsidies that they've enjoyed for nearly a year. Becoming a "bank holding company" has been the secret to Goldman's success, letting the company tap into unimaginable amounts of money. "Bank holding companies (which all the biggest financial firms now are) come under the regulatory purview of the Fed, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and the FDIC. The capital they keep in reserve in case of emergency (like, say, toxic assets hemorrhaging on their books, or credit derivative...