Goldman Sachs invented the most toxic financial instruments that led to the 2008 financial meltdown. While it was inherently clear to those following the brouhaha on a regular basis, now they seem to have proof. Meanwhile, Wall Street bonuses rise 17%.

Goldman Sachs and other big banks aren't just pocketing the trillions we gave them to rescue the economy - they're re-creating the conditions for another crash!!! from Matt Taibbi. Unless we break up these big banks we are falling headlong into another crisis. Greece is an example where Goldman Sachs is directly implicated in hiding that country's debt until the situation imploded. When are we going to stop this??? In the excerpt below, Matt talks about Goldman's scam also known as "Swoop and Squat"...

Sleight of hand and orphan month based accounting - Goldman Sachs style

Goldman Sachs keeps getting better at the 'hoodwink' game... Just about everyone heard about their wondrous profits declared yesterday. Now the rest of the story...

From here: Goldman Sachs reported a profit of $1.8 billion in the first quarter, and plans to sell $5 billion in stock and get out of the government’s clutches, if it can.

How did it do that? One way was to hide a lot of losses in not-so-plain sight.

Goldman’s 2008 fiscal year ended Nov. 30. This year the company is switching to a calendar year. The leaves December as an orphan month, one that will be largely ignored. In Goldman’s earnings statement, and in most of the news reports, the quarter ended March 31 is compared to the quarter last year that ended in February.

The orphan month featured — surprise — lots of write-offs. The pretax loss was $1.3 billion, and the after-tax loss was $780 million.

Would the firm have had a profit if it had stuck to its old calendar, and had to include December and exclude March?

Note: In spite of their profits, the fact that they are blogger bullies remain...