Quote from nitro:
What?
Is your point that all business is unethical?
My understanding is that GS lobbied the government back in the late 1990s to the effect that it could not compete against foreign firms because those firms did not have the same leverage handcuffs that we had.Quote from ByLoSellHi:
I posted this as a separate thread, but Taibbi of Rolling Stone did an provocative expose on Goldman, it's relationship to government, and some of it's more epic machinations of manipulations, going back the era of the Great Depression -
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/28816321/inside_the_great_american_bubble_machine/print
Here's the print article, scanned and hosted on line:
http://zerohedge.blogspot.com/2009/06/goldman-sachs-engineering-every-major.html
Quote from asiaprop:
I am saying that if you consider GS's business practices unethical then about 95% corporations are unethical as well. Or do you find the way defense contractors secure new orders is ethical? Or is how P&G runs production facilities with little or zero regard to employee safety in many countries ethical? Or how about the ethics of how Boing/Airbus lobby their interests? The list goes on and on.
If you despise how GS lobbies its self-interest then you may as well rewrite the entire way corporates conduct business world wide. Let's be clear: We all wish business is conducted in a 100% clean, ethical, and respectful manner, but thats not what I see ANYWHERE. Should we strive to improve things if its for the benefit of society at large? Sure and the ONLY thing I have been arguing for was to NOT single out GS because pretty much everyone else is conducting business in a very similar fashion, albeit in their own sector specific/company specific ways.
I simply find it questionable how some "GS bashers" point fingers while they would probably go to great, if necessary, unethical lengths to further their own success. Its easy to point fingers for some of those guys with their 1000 dollars and one mini lot under their arm. The game is entirly different when you are managing stakes on completely different levels. In this competitive environment it comes down to life or death and most chose life within the legal limits even if that means they have to sacrifice being 100% "clean". I dont condone unethical conduct but I think when each one reflects on their own dealings...you know where I am getting at...
Quote from nitro:
I agree in general. However, two wrongs don't make a right.
I was speeding once on the highway. I was mostly going the same speed as everyone else. A cop was hidden and wham his speed gun went off on me. I suggested that I was speeding, but I was going the same speed as everyone else. LMAO. This was not a defense.
I don't know if what GS does is unethical or not. I am concerned whether it does ILLEGAL things. I have no hopes that when you put people and money in the same room, that Mother Teresa pops out.
Quote from WaveStrider:
asiaprop is correct in that GS and others should have taken it's payment due up with the US legal system, suing AIG for what it was owed.
There might have been an argument about not doing sufficient due diligence on it's insurer, but that would have been a legal battle for the courts.
Agreed as well. But I think you are missing a point made by other people on this thread and elsewhere that take exception to GS: if you have the people that make laws and can say you do right or wrong in your pocket, you can't use getting caught by those same people as your metric for doing something right or wrong.Quote from asiaprop:
fully agree. And right after GS is sentenced in court I will be the first one to yield to the authority.