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Goldman's new money machine: warehouses

reuters.com

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Re: Goldman's new money machine: warehouses

#31

Post by Jd »

gwright wrote: post #16
hristov wrote: post #5

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.

It wouldn't surprise me to find out that it is next to impossible to create a new metals exchange due to onerous government regulations that effectively keep out new competitors. 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.

And it wouldn't surprise me that the same companies that talk about the free market solving its own problems lobby against any change in onerous government regulations.

Re: Goldman's new money machine: warehouses

#32

Post by dhume »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #20
drats wrote: post #4

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…

They recommended to various customers to invest in all sorts of CDOs while at the same time betting against them having internally decided they were going to fail. 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…

So sales produces a prospectus that suggests this is a bad investment. Then they continue agreeing to package and promote these securities. Were there some information excluded from the prospectus which suggested to the sales force that they were actually a good investment, I might still be able to see them as honest. Otherwise, this sounds like an attempt to apply the Nuremberg defense where remaining in the situation of having immoral rules to follow was voluntary.

Re: Goldman's new money machine: warehouses

#33

Post by anon1385 »

Jd wrote: post #28
potatolicious wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, you're right of course - there is no objective measure of the balance of good and evil. What I do does eliminate jobs. Does the benefit to everyone else outweigh the loss of these jobs? Many people would say yes, some would say no. Some job eliminations open the door for more jobs - for different people. Does this balance the morality of putting people out of work? I don't know. Nobody does. But there is some…

In case you didn't read the preceding comment carefully, he knows that what you say is true, he just doesn't give a shit -- and, moreover, knows that you can't do a damn thing about it.

We can overthrow existing power structures and execute him. Has happened before, will happen again. Amusingly, the harder he works and the better he is at his job, the closer this gets.

Re: Goldman's new money machine: warehouses

#34

Post by seigenblues »

fleitz wrote: post #21
potatolicious wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't care that I'm going to hell, because I know hell doesn't exist. Indeed, no matter how pious I act, by some religion's definition I'm damned anyways. 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…

You're a programmer, most of what you is put people out of work. That thing you automated? Someone who doesn't know how to program lost their job because of it, and it ain't coming back. You'll tell yourself that you've created opportunities for two more programming jobs for someone else to enhance your automation work, but that guy with the GED is still out of work. Tough shit buddy, should have learned to program.…

You're just describing one kind of programming. I write code that does things that literally couldn't be done by people. it's a job where there wasn't one before -- and it helps create other jobs where there weren't any before. I don't want to say our company wouldn't be able to exist without that code, because my code wouldn't exist without the rest of the company, either, but the point remains:

If your self-justification works for you -- great. But you're lying to yourself if you think it has to be that way or that that is the only way. Computers (& technology generally) enable new business models at the same time as they make other models obsolete, such is life. Whether you think that balance tips one way or another is your business -- but your blatant cynicism and "oh, the world has to work this way" seems like you just letting yourself off easy.

That said, i wish you the best putting those big-money financier jobs out of work :)

Re: Goldman's new money machine: warehouses

#35

Post by hammock »

rapind wrote: post #17
lawnchair_larry wrote: post #3

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 hypothetically if someone wanted to opt-out of this essentially corrupt system completely, how would they go about it? I mean paying taxes in a country with bailouts certainly ties you up into the system. Even without bailouts, living in a country tied to a dollar that's being printed like mad kind of ties you up into it too right? So... how exactly would one go about this? Possible?

http://seasteading.org/

Re: Goldman's new money machine: warehouses

#36

Post by jeza »

potatolicious wrote: post #13
drats wrote: post #4

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…

Isn't it more a case that they divorce themselves from reality by dealing with pure numbers? I gather they would only focus on prices and not even think about the impact it has on other companies and people.

Re: Goldman's new money machine: warehouses

#37

Post by potatolicious »

Jd wrote: post #28
potatolicious wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, you're right of course - there is no objective measure of the balance of good and evil. What I do does eliminate jobs. Does the benefit to everyone else outweigh the loss of these jobs? Many people would say yes, some would say no. Some job eliminations open the door for more jobs - for different people. Does this balance the morality of putting people out of work? I don't know. Nobody does. But there is some…

In case you didn't read the preceding comment carefully, he knows that what you say is true, he just doesn't give a shit -- and, moreover, knows that you can't do a damn thing about it.

I suppose - though I got some sense that he thinks the engineering he does is the same as what we do. To be slightly snarky about it, his argument seems to be "we're all evil, I just own up to being evil, the rest of you suckers are just in denial".

Except, his breed of evil is considerably more extreme than ours.

Re: Goldman's new money machine: warehouses

#38

Post by justsee »

cletus wrote: post #8

Investment banks do provide valuable services: market making (providing liquidity in many markets), capital raising, the creation of financial instruments so investors can hedge against certain kinds of risk and so on. Unfortunately I think we're reaching the point of banks overstepping their bounds and creating far more problems than they really should. This strategy seems similar to the "demand shock" approach they…

Why do you assert that Australia "didn't have the bubble in real estate prices that the US did"?

We have a significant asset bubble here. It hasn't popped primarily because we've had government-sponsored inflation of prices via the First Home Owner's Grant.

The unwinding of the asset bubble finally seems to be happening in Australia now and will trigger many of the same financial issues for our banks (for instance Commonwealth bank is holding far more housing debt than any of the US and UK banks at the point their markets went south).

Re: Goldman's new money machine: warehouses

#39

Post by Jd »

anon1385 wrote: post #33
Jd wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In case you didn't read the preceding comment carefully, he knows that what you say is true, he just doesn't give a shit -- and, moreover, knows that you can't do a damn thing about it.

We can overthrow existing power structures and execute him. Has happened before, will happen again. Amusingly, the harder he works and the better he is at his job, the closer this gets.

Where do I sign up?

Re: Goldman's new money machine: warehouses

#40

Post by rapind »

hammock wrote: post #35
rapind wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So hypothetically if someone wanted to opt-out of this essentially corrupt system completely, how would they go about it? I mean paying taxes in a country with bailouts certainly ties you up into the system. Even without bailouts, living in a country tied to a dollar that's being printed like mad kind of ties you up into it too right? So... how exactly would one go about this? Possible?

http://seasteading.org/

That's pretty interesting. If only it were more wife friendly.
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