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Goldman Tries to Combat Its Bad Image

[Presumably the venture capital part will have a possibility of providing a return to Goldman.]

Oh yeah, VC... that's where they take an arm and a leg and the first-born of the founders...

And this after sucking the profits out of everything they touch, while adding how much value?

Yeah, that'll help... all square now.

The Trouble with Rescues and Stimulus

[how can we ”rescue” and “stimulate” the economy without encouraging the “living beyond our means” mentality that is so harmful to the longer-term health of our economy?]

We can't- those two objectives are mutually exclusive.

Criticizing the banks for not immediately lending the money seems crazy to me.

Did they inject this capital to improve the health of the institutions? If so, then they should be allowed to decide how best to do that.

Taking that money and immediately loaning it just because they were scolded would later be seen as irresponsible. Then the legislators would have to castigate the banking industry for "making the problem worse."

You can't win when you have ignorant people deciding how we're going to "fix" the problem with government money.

Is the U.S. Banking System Safe?

[Home prices have historically tracked inflation and are likely to revert to the mean. ]

I agree with NY above that inflation is going to accelerate, but with all of the reasons that housing prices have to continue to decline, I'm wondering if house prices may decouple from that measure.