[create_account]

Some of those banks do very well, and it wouldn't be terrible for their PR to hire him.

Possible, but unlikely.

Smith must have known he'd be attacked personally (as in that ad hominem piece you posted), and it's unlikely another bank would want to touch him, regardless of their true feelings towards Goldman.

Do you know anyone who pays people for saying stuff like this on random message boards?

Sure: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/pku22/iama_former_koch...

I tend to say this kind of thing because I think it's true, and because I'm unimpressed with the quality of opposing arguments and would like someone to refute me.

I'll give you credit for the latter (if it's true), but not the former.

[twoodfin]

Yeah, that reddit IAmA post is not very convincing. Considering it attempts to confirm every single /r/politics stereotype about the evil Koch Industries, I'm inclined to believe guilty_of_innocence's theory that it's a fake and a troll.

[create_account]

Maybe, since he was willing to name his employers, who happen to be despised in liberal circles.

OTOH, there is a lot of PR spending on social media (e.g.: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/08/us/politics/obama-campaign...), so it wouldn't surprise me if Goldman has hired people to smear Smith on forums like this one.

[leot]

Can you imagine yourself paying someone to smear others on a forum? What if you really believed in your own cause? What if it cost you a trivial proportion of your buckets of money, and if you had legions of lawyers able to write terrifying NDAs? What if you had a history of being unscrupulous in countless other contexts?

What if all it took to "solve the problem" were a few choice words said to the right person?

This kind of smearing is almost certainly happening all over the place because there is tons of motive, tons of opportunity, and many people with a habit of being unscrupulous.

[create_account]

Can you imagine yourself paying someone to smear others on a forum?

I cannot, no.

But a large (and dare I say ruthless) organization interested in limiting the PR damage?

Sure.

[twoodfin]

Except it takes about 10 seconds to click over to byrneseyeview's profile and see that he's been on hn for years and is obviously not a shill.

It reflects poorly on you that you'd rather accuse someone of being dishonest than take a little effort to check your paranoia.

[create_account]

He's been on here for years, and so have I.

I have often wondered, though, about his alacrity to side with the establishment, in defense of investment bankers, against net neutrality, etc., and what his motivation is.

[philwelch]

It reflects poorly on you that you can't conceive of someone widely disagreeing with you in good faith.