The Securities and Exchange Commission's lawsuit against Goldman Sachs is revealing a cavalier culture in which the firm invested recklessly and bet against its own clients. Here are some of the company's questionable practices:
- Created its own blood bank and sat on all deposits until the Haitian earthquake
- Tried their hardest to dissuade risk-loving pensioners and teachers' unions from buying into unsound derivatives, but in the end it wasn't enough to stop them
- Drove up commodity index while hedging against price increases by maintaining a 20-acre facility crammed with full barrels of crude oil, stockpiled bales of cotton, and tens of thousands of lean hogs
- The guy who delivered lunch every day was always tipped with one of the company's crumbling mutual funds
- Offered clients discounted concert tickets that junior analysts won by repeatedly dialing into radio contests
- Invested in the highly lucrative underground organ trade through its Mexican subsidiary Goldmando Saques...
Goldman to Review Its Business Practices