Lloyd Blankfein

This week people have been buzzing about Goldman Sachs executive Greg Smith's high-profile resignation from Goldman and his description of the way that company's ethics and morals have declined over the last decade and more, especially under current CEO Lloyd Blankfein. read more »

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It took the journalists at Bloomberg News two years - and presumably lots of legal fees - to pry information out of the Federal Reserve that should have been made public long ago. We now know that the Fed's secret $7.7 trillion lending program wasn't just the most massive bank bailout ever seen, and it wasn't just free money for mega-bankers - though it was certainly both of those things. It was also the greatest hoax in stock market history.

No, scratch that. It was the greatest hoax in the history of money. And it was built on lies. How many? Let us count the ways.

Here's the first one: The banks paid back all the money back that they were given. No, they didn't. They paid back the principal on these loans. But by obtaining loans at rates far below market value, we now know they received the equivalent of $13 billion in cash giveaways.

Here's another lie: Fed economists support a free-market economy.

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Music was Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson's second career. News reports say he began dealing crack at the age of twelve, after the murder of his coke-dealer mother. Early tracks like "Ghetto Quran" and "How to Rob" reflect a brutal, street-hustling life, and Jackson has the bullet wounds to match. He's talented, wildly successful, and I sure wouldn't mess with him.

But when he starts mixing social media with pumped-up investment pitches, 50 Cent is moving into Goldman Sachs territory. "Fitty" reportedly earned millions for touting a stock on Twitter, without disclosing that he owned shares in the company. How does that stack up against Goldman's own social media deal with Facebook? When you move into the stock market, you're going where the real gangstas roll. read more »

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Happy New Year! read more »

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In a nation wracked with unemployment and recession, Wall Street firms are still paying billions of dollars in bonuses - and they're hiring, too. The Federal Reserve recently affirmed its right to regulate executive pay, but has yet to take action on it. It should. These two facts - that bankers are earning billions while millions are unemployed - don't just represent an injustice. They are seamlessly connected, representing two aspects of the same underlying problem. When people are given incentives to "make a killing" rather than invest in the future, that's exactly what they'll do. read more »

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Heavy-hitting Wall Street political donors are withholding their money from the Democratic Party's campaign coffers, according to a Washington Post report making the rounds on Capitol Hill today. read more »

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An anonymous email's been making the rounds on Wall Street from some loser who thinks he's a shark. It's a nasty piece of work that reveals the mentality of the people that have been running our economy for some time, thanks to deregulation and political influence peddling. We caught a glimpse of that mentality in Goldman Sachs' testimony last week. But even though they seemed pretty odious to the public, the Goldman Sachs boys actually had their "play nice" faces on.

This email takes off the mask. It reveals the psychology of Wall Street in its rawest form. If it didn't it wouldn't have gone viral so quickly, being passed all around the Street by brokers satisfied that someone is finally telling "Joe Mainstreet" what superior human beings - what ubermenschen - brokers really are.

We've responded, below, and we're offering a challenge to the author: We'll debate you anytime.

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6:05

This hearing has now been going for more than eight hours, and for better or for worse, I need to head over to do an interview with Al Jazeera English. It goes on at 7:00. I'll be talking about financial reform, in addition to the Goldman fraud case.

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6:00 read more »

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