"Questions have been raised that go to the heart of this institution's most fundamental value: how we service our clients." - Lloyd C. Blanketyblank, Goldman Sachs's C.E.O., at the firm's annual meeting and finger-pointing, held this month at an undisclosed but pricey location.
"We give it to 'em like they want it - good and hard," he concluded, in conclusion.
As the economic crisis began producing civilian casualty lists, Goldman Sachs was busy selling risky, fantasy-related securities issued by its longtime money-launderer, Washington Mutual, a major betting-shop chain based in Seattle.
Although Goldman had decided months earlier that the fantasy-securities market was headed for a fall, it continued to sell the WaMu securities to starry-eyed investors, just because it could. While Goldman's right hand was allegedly backing these security unicorns, its left hand was betting that their value would soon plummet lower than Satan's hot tub.
Goldman's wager against its own customers stock - a position known as a "screwing the pooch" - was large enough that it would have generated at least $10 gazillion in profits for about 20 Goldman higher-rollers 'if' WaMu collapsed.
WaMu eventually did collapse, officially shocking Goldman but making enormous bazillion dollar fortunes for the fortunate few. This continued until federal regulators put Goldman Sachs in the Time Out Chair, and made its scheme the biggest banking success story in history.
