Not bad work if you can get it:
Comfortably beating analysts’ forecasts, Goldman Sachs earned second-quarter net profits of $3.44 billion, or $4.93 a share, the bank announced on Tuesday.
The results continue a robust turnaround for the firm since it rode out the final tumultuous months of last year with the aid of a federal rescue. They come just one month after it paid back its $10 billion in federal aid.
Goldman’s profit was lifted by record quarterly revenues of $6.8 billion in its fixed income, currency and commodities unit, where mortgage and other credit instruments are traded, the bank said in a statement. This business has performed well since the bank has taken on greater levels of risk since the end of last year.
Why are ANY of these banks taking on greater levels of risks? Also:
Executives at Goldman Sachs sold almost $700m worth of stock following the collapse of Lehman Brothers last September, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Most of the sales occurred during the period in which the investment bank enjoyed the support of $10bn from the troubled asset relief programme.
The surge in selling among Goldman partners, at a time when the US government had thrown a lifeline to Wall Street, is likely to draw criticism from lawmakers on Capitol Hill. Having survived the crisis, the bank is expected to report strong second-quarter earnings on Tuesday on rebounding trading profits.
I’m sure someone on the hill will issue a sternly worded letter. Maybe on the back of an envelope used by Goldman to mail Schumer and others campaign contributions.
Face
6.8 billion in revs in one quarter? For a company with no tangible product/item/patent, this is just stunning.
At least oil companies can point to the price of oil for their profits. Just how does GS explain this?
Buckethead
When taxpayers are covering their losses, they aren’t risking anything.
Dracula
Per usual, Greenwald’s pissed that peeps aren’t pissed about this.
Just wait until the bonuses for such record profits are announced.
Robertdsc-iphone
That’s change we can believe in.
A Mom Anon
How much money do these fucks need?
Maybe I’m just a peasant,but one million dollars would be plenty for me to live a good life,put my son through school and leave me enough left over to provide a little for my grandbabies.
I hate them,with the passion of a kabillion fiery suns.
The Grand Panjandrum
@Buckethead: Word.
The risk they are taking is that Harry Reid, Tim Geithner and Ben Bernanke will say means about them or even send them the much dreaded Strongly Worded Letter. Oh, the horror!
Can these bastards just, please, suck me off with a breast pump?
ItAintEazy
@Face:
It’s easy if you don’t add the months in which you lose money.
Seriously, we are long, long overdue for a Bastille Day in this country.
linda
sotomayor is quite awesome in her testimony. her demeanor, intelligence, and remarkable patience dealing with that mouthbreathing nitwit from alabama — jeff sessions.
Germane Jackson
What risk? There’s no risk in stealing people’s wallets when you’re the policeman.
Has anyone read Complicity by Ian Banks? Exactly when are the heads of these companies going to start being treated like the heads of state they are? And by that I mean, when will they start being assassinated? It’s amazing it hasn’t happened already.
angulimala
I don’t care how much they “need” and I don’t blame them for wanting a lot of money.
I do think it’s fucking suspicious that GS is making so much more than all the other banks in this time of economic problems.
It’s luck or they are cheating somehow. Right now, I’d bet on the latter.
linda
t’s luck or they are cheating somehow. Right now, I’d bet on the latter.
the latest revelation about the gs secret trading program that gives it a heads up on what others are doing seems to me a screaming manipulation of the market exercise. and yet, nothing. must be because the only one focusing on that is that rude boy, matt taibi. he says ‘fuck’ alot.
SGEW
I propose a new tag for these sorts of posts: “Shit That Makes Ralph Nader Look Better In Hindsight.”
Comrade javafascist
Knock Knock
Who’s there?
Goldman Sachs.
Goldman Sachs who?
Goldman Sachs figured out a way to make the public assume the cost of risk while keeping the profits.
I don’t get it.
No you don’t. But we do, which was the point.
Johnny B. Guud
Actually, GS has always been the industry leader in terms of profitability, EPS and whatnot. There’s really nothing unusual about them leading the pack now.
The fact that they’re making gazillions now is only more salt in the proverbial wound, given that
we can no longer use our houses as ATMs to buy different color Ipods and other materialistic crap, and our pittance-like retirement plans are in the toiletthe recession appears to be so pronounced.Comrade Dread
How much of this ‘profit’ comes from TARP or off the books Fed lending, I wonder?
Hell, I’m a libertarian, but the more I hear about Goldman Sachs, the more I want to throw in the towel, grab a hammer and/or sickle and become a Bolshevist.
Brachiator
The Brits aren’t too happy about Goldman either (Bailed-out bankers share in £4bn bonus pool as Goldman Sachs posts massive profit)
It looks as if both Democrats and Republicans were played for fools when it came to the financial markets needing a bailout.
And it may be that even the best economists aren’t necessarily good at discussing business segments. I think that Krugman would have a hard time justifying the government taking “toxic assets” off the hands of banks which are not just rolling in dough, but doing Flying forward one-and-a-half somersaults, pike dives into oceans of profits.
bayville
Does this mean the MSM will cease the nauseating feature stories on the brokers, traders and money managers who are suffering – just like the rest us – during this Great Recession?
Ya’ know, the stories about the guys and gals who’ve been forced to drink second-shelf liquor and suck on $7 domestic cigars instead of the premium sh#t they are accustomed.
themann1086
GS’ other motto is “Keep Your Hands Off Of My Stack”
bayville
So was an obnoxious prick of a Pullitzer Prize winner. Remember:
And this.
Alan
Just remember these are the friends Jim Cramer cried about–how they were really hurting. Oh yeah, and Obama was destroying wealth…that is until he began to play ball.
Mike G
Time for Government Sachs to pay back the $13 billion in TARP money they received laundered through the bailout of AIG. Fucking parasites.
Fulcanelli
What teh hell is the matter with you people? This is great news!
After Goldman Sachs pays their Whopping One Percent in Federal Income Taxes on this obscene amount of profit, the deficit will be history!
Batten down the hatches bitches, this rising tide of tax revenue and industrial productivity is gonna lift all our effin’ boats clear out of the water (and onto the jagged rocks).
Good Times!
Rick Taylor
Why did we pay these people something like seventeen billion dollars through AIG again?
bayville
More Pearlstein from Oct. 2008: Evidently, he still believes in the tooth fairy:
To summarize, in Pullitzer Prize-winning Steve Pearlstein’s view, Paulson – and his “crew” -were purely altruistic when they put together the original bailout package. Is there a greater example of journalistic naivety in this past year than this?
Alan
Robert Reich makes an interesting point regarding how GS’s profits will impact the investment banking culture–plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose.
Brachiator
@Alan:
Great link. I particularly like this part from Reich (with whom I generally disagree)
So the Treasury and Fed might not have so much stabilized financial markets as helped a particular bank (Goldman) eliminate the competition. And again, the Brits, which nationalized a couple of banks, still got suckered even though they picked a different path than the US.
I don’t know. I think the government has to look beyond micro-regulation (trying simply to react to the previous crisis) since the bankers are more nimble at dancing around overly-specific attempts to rein them in. Perhaps they should look at increasing reserve requirements and forcing down consumer interest rates.
bayville
@Alan:
Reich:
These were the concerns of legitimate skeptics way back in September 2008 with regard to the bailout. One of the benefits of Lehman going belly-up was that it watered down the competition – and at the same time it was an opportunity for Paulson to get back at the man he hated most in the world, Lehman Bros. CEO Richard Fuld.
It’s all just a game to these scumbags, even in these worst of times for everyone else.
Johnny B. Guud
From the Reuters story on Goldman’s earnings:
/blockquote
Despite the big uproar over the AIG bonuses earlier this year, I don’t think we’ll be hearing any significant peeps from the political faux-populists in DC about this anytime soon–given how politically entrenched Goldman Sachs is and all.
Edit: Blockquote fail.
Irony Abounds
The real crime here is that Goldman Sachs is still chartered as a commercial bank, thereby getting access to cheap money from the Fed which they then employ in risky investments. CNBC reported that of the $18 Billion in revenues in the 2nd quarter that Goldman received, $10 Billion was tied directly to risk investments. Apparently Goldman’s VAR, which is a measure of risk in your investments, is significantly greater than any other bank’s.
Goldman became chartered as a commercial bank at the height of the meltdown, which gave it certain Federal guarantees and access to cheap money from the Fed. They have no depositors, and there is no reason for them to be a commercial bank at this point. They really are just greedy awful people. I am now convinced that despite any short term pain, the entire banking system should have been allowed to collapse just as a lesson to these blood suckers.
MBSS
hivemind
i was just thinking about the lyrics of that song, and listened to it on the radio today.