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&lt;p&gt;&lt;font face=&quot;Arial&quot; size=&quot;2&quot;&gt;There have been no shortage of journalistic attempts at a comprehensive explanation of how we have&amp;nbsp;arrived at&amp;nbsp;our present economic grief.&lt;span&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;(Topping the list must be Michael Lewis&amp;#8217; &lt;/font&gt;&lt;font face=&quot;Arial&quot; size=&quot;2&quot;&gt;The End of Wall Street&amp;#8217;s Boom&lt;/font&gt;&lt;font face=&quot;Arial&quot; size=&quot;2&quot;&gt;, Henry Blodgett&amp;#8217;s &lt;/font&gt;&lt;font face=&quot;Arial&quot; size=&quot;2&quot;&gt;Why Wall Street Always Blows It&lt;/font&gt;&lt;font face=&quot;Arial&quot; size=&quot;2&quot;&gt;, and This American Life&amp;#8217;s &lt;/font&gt;&lt;font face=&quot;Arial&quot; size=&quot;2&quot;&gt;The Giant Pool of Money&lt;/font&gt;&lt;font face=&quot;Arial&quot; size=&quot;2&quot;&gt;.)&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;font face=&quot;Arial&quot;&gt;&lt;font size=&quot;2&quot;&gt;Now comes Matt Taibbi &amp;#8216;s &lt;i&gt;Rolling Stone &lt;/i&gt;piece &lt;i&gt;The Great American Bubble Machine.&lt;span&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/i&gt;His thesis: it&amp;#8217;s all Goldman Sachs&amp;#8217; fault. Channeling the bile and apocalyptic imagery of Hunter S. Thompson, Taibbi lays out a case for Goldman Sachs as an evil, omniscient puppet master, singlehandedly engineering&amp;#8212;and of course gorging itself on profits from&amp;#8212;every market bubble of the last 100 years.&lt;span&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;(Goldman consiglieres Sullivan &amp;amp; Cromwell are entirely absent from Taibbi&amp;#8217;s account.)&lt;span&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;Readers used to the sober understatement of, say, the Abovethelaw comments section, might be struck by the piece&amp;#8217;s hyperbolism. &lt;span&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;To wit: &lt;span&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;&lt;font face=&quot;Arial&quot;&gt;&lt;font size=&quot;2&quot;&gt;The world&amp;#8217;s most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming it blood funnel into anything that smells like money.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;&lt;font face=&quot;Arial&quot;&gt;&lt;font size=&quot;2&quot;&gt;Goldman went beserk with lending lust&amp;#8230;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;&lt;font face=&quot;Arial&quot;&gt;&lt;font size=&quot;2&quot;&gt;Goldman&amp;#8217;s mantra of &amp;#8216;long term greedy&amp;#8217; vanished into thin air as the game became about getting your check before the melon hit the pavement.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;&lt;font face=&quot;Arial&quot;&gt;&lt;font size=&quot;2&quot;&gt;If you laddered and spun 50 Internet IPOs that went bust within a year, so what?&lt;span&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;By the time the SEC got around to fining your firm $110 million, the yacht you bought with your IPO bonuses was already six years old.&lt;span&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;Besides, you were probably out of Goldman by then, running the U.S. Treasury or maybe the state of New Jersey.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;&lt;font face=&quot;Arial&quot;&gt;&lt;font size=&quot;2&quot;&gt;At least with the other banks, you could say that they were just dumb&amp;#8212;they believed what they were selling, and it blew them up.&lt;span&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;Goldman knew what it was doing.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;font face=&quot;Arial&quot;&gt;&lt;font size=&quot;2&quot;&gt;And on and on it goes.&lt;span&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;You can&amp;#8217;t say it&amp;#8217;s boring. &lt;span&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;font face=&quot;Arial&quot;&gt;&lt;font size=&quot;2&quot;&gt;Whatever one says or wants to believe about Goldman Sachs, we can stipulate that they are tetchy about their brand image. &lt;span&gt;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;Back in April, &lt;span&gt;crusading anti-Goldman blogger Mike Morgan (goldmansachs666.com!) &amp;nbsp;filed suit against the &lt;s&gt;investment&lt;/s&gt; bank holding company in a preemptive move after he received a hamfisted (and ultimately pointless) Chadbourne &amp;amp; Park-authored &amp;#8216;cease and desist&amp;#8217; letter.&lt;span&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;font face=&quot;Arial&quot;&gt;&lt;font size=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&lt;span&gt;So now that Goldman is being accused of monumental, earthshaking&lt;span&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;fraud (&amp;#8220;It&amp;#8217;s the &lt;i&gt;heart &lt;/i&gt;of securities fraud&amp;#8221;), not by an obscure blog, but in a national magazine&lt;/span&gt;&lt;i&gt;&amp;#8212;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;span&gt;how will it respond?&lt;span&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;Thus far, the bank&amp;#8217;s only public comment has been, according to &lt;i&gt;Time&lt;/i&gt;, &lt;/span&gt;&quot;Taibbi&#39;s article is a compilation of just about every conspiracy theory ever dreamed up about Goldman Sachs, but what real substance is there to support the theories?&quot;&lt;span&gt;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;font face=&quot;Arial&quot;&gt;&lt;font size=&quot;2&quot;&gt;To which a conspiracy-minded type might respond, &amp;#8220;&lt;i&gt;Interesting&amp;#8212;&lt;/i&gt;that&amp;#8217;s not exactly a denial.&amp;#8221;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;font face=&quot;Arial&quot;&gt;&lt;font size=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; -posted by brian&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;font face=&quot;Arial&quot; size=&quot;2&quot;&gt;UPDATE: I was late to this--Derek had already blogged about it (no link).&amp;nbsp; Goldman actually has responded a bit more vigorously.&amp;nbsp; See this NYP story:&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;font face=&quot;Arial&quot; size=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;font face=&quot;Arial&quot; size=&quot;2&quot;&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;font face=&quot;Times New Roman&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;The bank&#39;s spokesman, Lucas Van Praag, was more pointed: &quot;[Taibbi&#39;s] story is an hysterical compilation of conspiracy theories,&quot; he wrote in an e-mail. &quot;Notable ones missing are Goldman Sachs as the third shooter [in John F. Kennedy&#39;s assassination] and faking the first lunar landing.&quot;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/font&gt;

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