The Obscenity That Is Goldman Sachs

There is a time when a CEO's appearance is especially offensive to us.  Blankfein's presence at Gupta's trial is one of those times.  Blankfein does not want to become too good at testifying at others' trials, he says.  But his hearty laughs; his guffaws; his bantering with the judge (Rakoff); his joking about getting religion; the roar of laughter in the courtroom; Blankfein's relaxed demeanor; his comfortableness with what is going on; all speak of his acknowledgement that he is above the Rule of Law and everyone can lump it.

Except loki in his comments on the article who says:

loki

Better to die fighting, than live on knees 

 

Read this and you will get a better understanding of what we are up against, and why people like this can laugh when they are facing serious situations, or even if they destroy others lives.

http://www.cix.co.uk/~klockstone/spath.htm Inside the Mind of a Sociopath

This excerpt is from: "The Sociopath Next Door: The Ruthless vs. the Rest of Us" by Martha Stout Ph.D. (Broadway Books, New York, 2005, ISBN 0-7679-1581-X). Martha Stout is a clinical instructor at Harvard Medical School

"You have the driving nature and the intellectual capacity to pursue tremendous wealth and influence, and you are in no way moved by the nagging voice of conscience that prevents other people from doing everything and anything they have to do to succeed. You choose business, politics, the law, banking or international development, or any of a broad array of other power professions, and you pursue your career with a cold passion that tolerates none of the usual moral or legal encumbrances. When it is expedient, you doctor the accounting and shred the evidence, you stab your employees and your clients (or your constituency) in the back, marry for money, tell lethal premeditated lies to people who trust you, attempt to ruin colleagues who are powerful or eloquent, and simply steamroll over groups who are dependent and voiceless. And all of this you do with the exquisite freedom that results from having no conscience whatsoever. "

Read other comments here 

Rajat Gupta, Former Goldman Sachs Director, Hears CEO's Testimony At Insider Trading Trial
By D. M. Levine - HuffPost Business

. . . .

Blankfein also testified that during a June 2008 meeting in St. Petersburg, Russia, the Goldman board discussed the possibility of purchasing either a distressed commercial bank or the insurance giant AIG -- information that Gupta was heard relaying to Rajaratnam on a wiretapped phone conversation later that summer. That tape was presented to jurors earlier in the trial.

“It was agreed that AIG would be a suitable target” at the St. Petersburg meeting, Blankfein told the jury Monday.

Any such information discussed in board meetings was secret, Blankfein said. “All parts of it were confidential. The fact that anything was discussed in the board meeting is itself a confidential fact.”

Read the whole article here