Goldman Sachs don’t make anything tangible. They move money around for profit, which means anyone else involved has lost, if you simplify it.
Aside from them being leeches, they also break laws. Not many companies have been fined $10 billion. And how any business deal can attract a $593 million fee is beyond comprehension.
Poor Roger Ng, once a power-suited global banker on the fast track at Goldman Sachs, a rainmaker in billion-dollar deals, now just a fall guy about to go on trial in America’s “biggest foreign bribery case” ever. The case involves a Malaysian state-owned investment fund that was ostensibly selling bonds to bankroll assorted development projects. But most of the bond-sale proceeds actually went to corrupt Malaysian officials, with Goldman Sachs pocketing $593 million for managing the shady sales, a strikingly huge fee way out of line with standard banking practice. Goldman lawyers have blamed the scandal on “rogue employees” like Ng. But the banking giant isn’t testing that claim in open court. Goldman instead last month reached a settlement with U.S. prosecutors that will bring the fines the bank has paid out since 1998 to over $10 billion. Ng, for his part, isn’t going down quietly. His lead defense: The USA has no right to prosecute him for crimes committed in Malaysia.
This is from an inequality.org email.