‘Greed Is Still Good’ On Wall Street

By Gilbert Mercier, NEWS  JUNKIE  POST

Yesterday, Goldman Sachs posted a record profit ($3.3 Billion) for the last quarter. Most of us are still struggling with the most severe global economic crisis since the Great Depression, and are wondering how it is even possible. Americans and Europeans are still losing their jobs at record speed, the real estate market is still declining, yet financial institutions such as Goldman Sachs are thriving.

Goldman Sachs is not alone. For the rest of the  banking sector’s major players on Wall Street and in London it is even better than “business as usual,” they are hiring. their profits are soaring and of course they will pay their top executives outrageous bonuses.

Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported that even the investment division of Bank of America, which includes the once critically troubled Merrill Lynch, is expected to post a profit this year.

In the UK, at the government controlled Royal Bank of Scotland, profits are projected as well. The CEO running the bank since November 2008 is reported to get a $16 Million a year pay compensation.

Apparently, we did not learn anything at all from the financial crisis. Banks and other financial institutions are back to their pre-crisis mentality with a vengeance. In the US, with the TARP public money, billions of dollars were injected into private institutions such as Goldman Sachs. It seems that they made good use of the public funding for their own financial gains.

A unique opportunity to change the world economic system was squandered. The very same financial structures & institutions are still calling all the shots despite the fact that they created the mess in the first place.

The financial “Masters of the Universe” are back (they never left) with a vengeance and have exactly the same “philosophy” then before, that is: ‘Greed is good’.