The Gold Mine at Goldman Sachs

On the PBS News Hour, Paul Solman just completed a two-part series "Making Sen$e: Inside Golman Sachs, Record Profits." Some interesting points were made: (1) contrary to CEO Lloyd Blankfein's testimony before Congress, GS is making most of it's money out of its own account (about 10% of its business is reported as generated from client funds), (2) which raises the possibility of front running (using advance knowledge of client trades to make advance purchases of it's own securities), (3) which makes me wonder why anyone would put their money with GS and (2) why the Fed thought they might qualify as a "lending institution" for the TARP program?

Oh, wait! Two prior Treasury Secretaries, Robert Rubin and Hank Paulson were Goldman employees before their brief stint as federal government employees. Does it make your stomach a little queasy?