11–20 of 85 posts
Goldman is the great american bubble machine, and it's disgusting. "From tech stocks to high gas prices, Goldman Sachs has engineered every major market manipulation since the Great Depression -- and they're about to do it again" http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-great-american...
This has been posted here before. Part of me respects then for being such excellent hackers of the letter of the law, but mostly I agree that this firm in specific is a. Armpits squid which is out of control and distorts markets, causes widespread harm to markets and individuals, and is not effectively controlled by regulators (who are largely Goldman alumni, in their revolving door system). I have no idea what the r…
I think you raising "hackers" with this is the perfect way to describe the situation. Goldman are hackers in the same sense the main stream media refers to crackers as hackers, not hackers in the creative sense used by this community. Futures markets have a purpose, in food and energy for example, but GS along with others has been manipulating them in dodgy ways. Ditto for this article and aluminum. They helped Greec…
Regulators set stupid rules, Goldman makes money. The US gov't offers insurance via the Federal Reserve, there's nothing immoral about taking advantage of someone else's stupid offer.
If the government opened an Apple store selling 17" MacBook Pros for $200 why would you not buy as many as you could, and resell them for $1500? I don't give a shit if it eventually put every Apple store employee out of business. Oh you have a one laptop per person rule? Ok, I'll pay people to stand in line. Problem sovled.
As for market manipulation of wheat prices, Goldman is only following suit in the official policy of the United States gov't. Exactly why do you think FDR ordered wheat to be burned while people were starving?
As for metal price manipulation you may also want to look at FDR and devaluing the dollar and making holding gold illegal to force the sale.
This has been posted here before. Part of me respects then for being such excellent hackers of the letter of the law, but mostly I agree that this firm in specific is a. Armpits squid which is out of control and distorts markets, causes widespread harm to markets and individuals, and is not effectively controlled by regulators (who are largely Goldman alumni, in their revolving door system). I have no idea what the r…
I think you raising "hackers" with this is the perfect way to describe the situation. Goldman are hackers in the same sense the main stream media refers to crackers as hackers, not hackers in the creative sense used by this community. Futures markets have a purpose, in food and energy for example, but GS along with others has been manipulating them in dodgy ways. Ditto for this article and aluminum. They helped Greec…
To accept employment there requires a conscious relinquishing of moral culpability - i.e., these people have decided that, yes, what the company does is fundamentally wrong, but for whatever reason (money, fame, power, the thrill of the hack, satisfaction of working on the winning team, etc) they don't care.
I'm not sure what use it would be to preach to people like this.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you raising "hackers" with this is the perfect way to describe the situation. Goldman are hackers in the same sense the main stream media refers to crackers as hackers, not hackers in the creative sense used by this community. Futures markets have a purpose, in food and energy for example, but GS along with others has been manipulating them in dodgy ways. Ditto for this article and aluminum. They helped Greec…
The type of people that Goldman employs aren't stupid, or ignorant. I've known a few - they are perfectly aware of what the company does, and the moral minefield they are in. To accept employment there requires a conscious relinquishing of moral culpability - i.e., these people have decided that, yes, what the company does is fundamentally wrong, but for whatever reason (money, fame, power, the thrill of the hack, sa…
You can't preach to people like that, they're fully rational and immune to patriotic emotional dulce et decorum est bullshit.
They don't care that their going to hell for their actions because they know hell doesn't exist.
The world isn't some retarded star wars black and white fantasy, it's black and black pretending to be white. Stop naming shadows in platos cave and get out into the sunshine.
Google didn't succeed because open source is some miracle of business, they succeeded because they created a platform for clicking ads and open source software makes that platform cheaper. Gmail isn't a gift to the internet community, it's more ads. If they didn't make money from it, they'd shut it down.
This has been posted here before. Part of me respects then for being such excellent hackers of the letter of the law, but mostly I agree that this firm in specific is a. Armpits squid which is out of control and distorts markets, causes widespread harm to markets and individuals, and is not effectively controlled by regulators (who are largely Goldman alumni, in their revolving door system). I have no idea what the r…
I think you raising "hackers" with this is the perfect way to describe the situation. Goldman are hackers in the same sense the main stream media refers to crackers as hackers, not hackers in the creative sense used by this community. Futures markets have a purpose, in food and energy for example, but GS along with others has been manipulating them in dodgy ways. Ditto for this article and aluminum. They helped Greec…
From how I understand the article Goldman has rediscovered a valid business opportunity that has been around for centuries. People always stockpiled supplies for later times and Goldman is doing it on a large scale. Even if they would be able to dominate the world market by this strategy, this situation would only sustain to the point when other material can be used as a substitute. So I personally don't see there a problem with this as long as they do not influence the market on the legislative side.
If there is a consensus among society that this is wrong, than it will be regulated. I personally condemn this increasingly popular idea that business should conduct self-infliction by neglecting opportunities just because certain parts of society disagree with perfectly legal practices.
This is pretty awful, but it seems like one of these problems that could and should be solved by the free market. Somebody should just start a new metals exchange that caters to the needs of its clients rather than trying to squeeze them. There is no reason why America has to do its metals trading in some ancient London exchange.
I don't completely understand what is going on in the original story but it also wouldn't surprise to find out that it is only via the existance of various regulations that this scheme is viable.
Goldman is the great american bubble machine, and it's disgusting. "From tech stocks to high gas prices, Goldman Sachs has engineered every major market manipulation since the Great Depression -- and they're about to do it again" http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-great-american...
So... how exactly would one go about this? Possible?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The type of people that Goldman employs aren't stupid, or ignorant. I've known a few - they are perfectly aware of what the company does, and the moral minefield they are in. To accept employment there requires a conscious relinquishing of moral culpability - i.e., these people have decided that, yes, what the company does is fundamentally wrong, but for whatever reason (money, fame, power, the thrill of the hack, sa…
I'm going to take massive downvotes on this but... You can't preach to people like that, they're fully rational and immune to patriotic emotional dulce et decorum est bullshit. They don't care that their going to hell for their actions because they know hell doesn't exist. The world isn't some retarded star wars black and white fantasy, it's black and black pretending to be white. Stop naming shadows in platos cave a…
But yet I'm not out there destroying livelihoods for personal profit. Way to pander to the stereotype that fear of the hereafter/almighty is the only way to get people to act morally/curb antisocial behavior.
I police my own behavior because, by some lucky stroke of evolutionary development, I have been granted the ability for high-level thought. Many people have been able to use this tremendously powerful ability to better us all collectively. Some seem only interested in using theirs for self-interest, even at the (grave) expense of everyone else.
This really is the core of it though: many people I've met in finance do believe wholeheartedly in "might makes right" - that morality and what the system allows them to do are one and the same.
I fear these people greatly.
This is pretty awful, but it seems like one of these problems that could and should be solved by the free market. Somebody should just start a new metals exchange that caters to the needs of its clients rather than trying to squeeze them. There is no reason why America has to do its metals trading in some ancient London exchange.
If prices rise due to increased demand, the free market usually solves it by increasing supply. In this case, Goldman doesn't actually use the aluminium. I guess that suppliers don't ramp up production because Goldman slowly sells the aluminium back to the market. The purpose is probably to influence the price at specific times, and to make it more volatile in general. Which counters the purpose of exchanges and futures contracts.
Somebody should just start a new metals exchange that caters to the needs of its clients rather than trying to squeeze them.
The clients of the exchange are aluminium consumers and suppliers, and they have different needs: while the consumers prefer low prices, suppliers want them high, to get a better margin. If prices were lower at one exchange (good for consumers), two things would happen:
1: Suppliers would sell their products at another exchange for a better price. Lower supply at the cheap exchange means that prices rise.
2: Arbitrageurs would buy at the cheap exchange and sell at other exchanges. Increased demand also leads to rising prices.
There is no reason why America has to do its metals trading in some ancient London exchange.
True, but "America" chose to trade in Olde Europe: aluminium was available at the New York Mercantile Exchange until 2009.
This has been posted here before. Part of me respects then for being such excellent hackers of the letter of the law, but mostly I agree that this firm in specific is a. Armpits squid which is out of control and distorts markets, causes widespread harm to markets and individuals, and is not effectively controlled by regulators (who are largely Goldman alumni, in their revolving door system). I have no idea what the r…
I think you raising "hackers" with this is the perfect way to describe the situation. Goldman are hackers in the same sense the main stream media refers to crackers as hackers, not hackers in the creative sense used by this community. Futures markets have a purpose, in food and energy for example, but GS along with others has been manipulating them in dodgy ways. Ditto for this article and aluminum. They helped Greec…
This is caused by legally mandated chinese walls, designed to give banking customers confidence that the bank is behaving in their best interest.
The sales/structuring desk is legally obligated to structure/sell CDO's after agreeing to do so. They are also obligated to maintain a fair bit of internal secrecy. They structure the CDO, write the contracts, package and sell it. That's all they do, and they do this because the loan originators paid them to do so.
Meanwhile, probably in a different building, the prop desk is shorting the CDO because they think it's a bad bet. The prop desk knows nothing about the CDO except what is contained in the sales prospectus sent out by the sales desk (which is usually quite a lot).
It's highly illegal for either of these groups of people to talk to one another. Their computer systems don't talk to each other and compliance will fire people if they send each other email. By law, the left hand can't know what the right hand is doing.