Brian Powers

Fisking Ben Stein on Goldman's 'Wrongdoing'

Whoops, Long GS.

Fisking Ben Stein on Goldman's 'Wrongdoing'

GS has very high end clients. Both business and individual clients. When these clients demand a product, Goldman has to offer it even if it goes against Goldman's advice.

These mortgage products were hot, hot, hot and if Goldman did not offer them, their clients would have gone elsewhere. Despite Goldman's own opinion, the clients still wanted them likely due to the hype. That is good business to give the customer what they want.

However, when it comes to Goldman's own trading and investing, I expect them to do the best they can. They new these real estate investing vehicles were overdue for a dose of reality and they invested accordingly.

They did not hurt their customers, they were helping them by giving them what they demanded. They did not push these vehicles like a floating interest rate mortgage on a minimum wager. They left it to these customers to make the decision where to invest. Then, Goldman did their own investing. End of story.