| Goldman was one of the 9 banks at that infamous meeting where Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson (not to be confused with the selling short hedge fund counter party of this deal) said "Take this money or else". Here's Judicial Watch's page on this meeting: http://www.judicialwatch.org/news/2009/may/judicial-watch-fo... The talking points that were coughed up 3/4ths of a year later for Judaical Watch's FOIA request match the leaked substance of the meeting including these details: "We don't believe it is tenable to opt out because doing so would leave you vulnerable and exposed. "If a capital infusion is not appealing, you should be aware that your regulator will require it in any circumstance." The leaks said that they were told they weren't leaving the room until they'd signed on the dotted line. This is the sort of thing you expect from the Mafia or in a Third World country, not the USA! Not to mention that the 23% interest they were charged was Mafia like. Too many envy the successful, and in this case technical excellence was part of the story. Goldman developed their own computer language "Slang", and while it's not too hot today, their overall system for using it gives them a fantastic advantage. When their leadership wants to play "what if", or the world changes, they can use their system to query all their units and get an answer in something like a few hours at the most. Other firms keep this embedded in a zillion different (and by definition often broken) spreadsheets and the like. Finding out which end is up is a largely manual and error prone process taking days (or so I read; whatever the time amounts, Goldman's system is going to be a lot faster and more accurate). |