Goldman Sachs is a "Bubble Maker"

On this blog we have discussed the many euphemisms used for "fraud" since the financial meltdown.  Euphemisms are safer words to use because other more accurate words might suggest that some criminal activity has taken place.  There are thousands of such euphemisms every where that speaking and writing take place.

As Mark Kingswell has said, "the technical term [for euphemisms] is bullshit."

Jargon, slogans, euphemisms, and terms of art are all weapons in the upgrade/downgrade tradition. We might class them together under the technical term bullshit, set out by philosopher Harry Frankfurt. The routine refusal to speak with regard to the truth is called bullshit because evasion of normativity--correctness being, after all, a standard external to one's personal desires--produces a kind of ordure, a dissemination of garbage, the scattering of shit. This is why, Frankfurt argues, bullshit is far more threatening, and politically evil, than lying. The bullshitter "does not reject the authority of truth, as the liar does, and oppose himself to it. He pays no attention to it at all. By virtue of this, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are."
By Mark Kingwell - Harper's Magazine

Here are a few words we have found that should be replaced with FRAUD:

huddles (insider trading), illegal behavior, wrongdoing, mistakes, irresponsible behavior, shadow banking system (SBS), fragility, times of stress, risk, break-down, credit-risk free, pushing leverage, weak financial regulation, "shitty deals," misleading or willful practices, improprieties, market-maker, deregulation, and so on, and so on.

Substitute "fraud" for any of these terms and you are telling the truth.

And, of course, the biggest bullshitter word of all time is "bubble."  Whenever you see an economic bubble, what you are really seeing is FRAUD.  How nicely interchageable are "fraud" and "bubble."

According to Washington's Blog, the biggest fraud of all is the "Bubble:"

The Biggest Bubble In History:  Fraud
By WashingtonsBlog

Forget the Housing, Bond or Derivatives Bubbles … Fraud Is the Biggest Bubble of All Time

The housing bubble which burst in 2007 or so was the biggest bubble of all time.

Many argue that the bubble in U.S. bonds has surpassed the housing bubble as the largest ever.

Of course, given that the derivatives market is more than a thousand trillion dollars, and that is is backed by thousands of times less collateral, a good case can be made for arguing that derivatives are the biggest bubble.

But if you really think about it, the largest bubble in history is fraud, because it includes all of the above and more.

Specifically, the housing crisis was caused by fraud.  The government encouraged fraud, and helped cover it up.

Huge swaths of the derivatives market are manipulated by fraud.  See this, this, this and this. But instead of cracking down on the fraud, the government is backing it.

And the bubble in bonds was caused by super-low interest rates.  See this, this and this.
Low interest rates – in turn – are caused by the government’s zero interest rate policy and quantitative easing.

Read the rest of the article here