Wednesday, April 22, 2009

The Profit Magicians Of Wall Street

Andrew Ross Sorkin's look at the fantasy earnings announced within the banking sector.

This bankster profit mumbo jumbo has to be about the most ridiculous attempt at sentiment engineering I could have ever imagined. The reality is if the Fed werent't backstopping the entire financial system, no major Wall Street firms would be in business today let alone be able to engineer statements of profit.

Humpty Dumpty over at Goldman Sachs gets more wobbly by the day. Wishing to repay the TARP money by offering $5 billion in debt for no productive purpose? Goldman got all of those free gifts via AIG and other shady dealings and they still need to raise money to pay back the Treasury? What I can't believe is the markets are subscribing to this offering. Adding balance sheet risk for no useful business purpose? I see Goldman has really learned a lesson from their incompetence. That lesson appears to be that more incompetence is justified. Is this supposed to be construed as positive? In this environment would such as asinine debt offering be possible without the Fed propping up the entire credit market?

Something is terribly wrong when millions of Americans rot without access to capital yet Goldman Sachs can float $5 billion in debt for absolutely no productive purpose. What did Cheech and Chong say? "If it looks like dog shit, smells like dog shit and tastes like dog shit......................
posted by TimingLogic at 6:17 AM