US government or China will buy GS.

QuoteOriginally posted by: TPETORCHIUS government or China will buy GS.It took everything I got from selling the family dry-cleaning business just to buy Lehman Brothers. I am all tapped out.

I think GS is still strong enough that it can save itself.

GS'll pay a hefty fine (without admitting guilt), Wall Street will (hypocritically) condemn them, Main Street will curse them, the Governement will...... forget about the government - they're useless...... in two months, it'll be business as usual.

QuoteOriginally posted by: AlanBGS'll pay a hefty fine (without admitting guilt), Wall Street will (hypocritically) condemn them, Main Street will curse them, the Governement will...... forget about the government - they're useless...... in two months, it'll be business as usual.I think that just about sums it up.

QuoteOriginally posted by: AlanBGS'll pay a hefty fine (without admitting guilt), Wall Street will (hypocritically) condemn them, Main Street will curse them, the Governement will...... forget about the government - they're useless...... in two months, it'll be business as usual.No admitting of guilt in this one mate... the reputational stakes are way too high and killer season of all the murmurings has finally arrived. The overzealousness of the SEC will be shown for what it is.

QuoteOriginally posted by: onedollarkiller season of all the murmurings has finally arrivedHuh?The aim of investment banking, and of economics in general, is to construct good investments. If someone disagrees with the price of those investments, constructed in good faith and with best efforts, he can go short. A bank which intentionally creates a bad investment, and then manufactures demand for that investment so that someone else can make money if it goes down, should at the very least be labeled as a different sort of bank.There is no defense for a bank which intentionally brings a bad investment to life, and creates more demand for it than otherwise would have existed.

QuoteMr. Viniar said the firm did not have to have "skin in the game" but had to balance out the long and the shorts ? the long side was not balanced with the short side so Goldman filled in the gap as the broker. So Goldman could have had to take a short side position if the portfolio was too heavy on the long side.This is basically an admission that the portfolio was designed by the people who expected it to go down, designed to be shorted. It it were designed to the specifications of investors, of people who wanted to go long, the problem would then be finding those willing to take the short side. But there was already a supply of such "designed to succeed" investments, none of them being quite bad enough, or quite poorly diversified enough for Paulson to bet against.Can you imagine doing an IPO on a dotcom stock where the insiders were net short?