The great Goldman heist

The great Mayor Ed Koch used to say he’d like to take a pitchfork through the Wall Street executives who fleeced Americans over the past decade.

Now, he says the pitchfork isn’t humiliating enough, and he’d like them publicly whipped in Central Park.

Me? Lately I’m just plain angry. I’m angry with Wall Street and I’m angry with Congress for allowing this to go on in an attempt to save their own political skin and some of their rich Wall Street friends.

We need real reform in the financial industry. The public deserves honesty and more transparency in the industry. We need reform that won’t hurt the economy or put people out of work.

President Obama came to New York City last Thursday to propose sweeping financial regulatory reform. While I agree that reform is necessary, the political timing of this bill is just too convenient. The day after Obama announced his plan, the Securities and Exchange Commission released the results of a nine-month study into Goldman Sachs’s financial practices.

They said Goldman had committed fraud involving mortgage-backed securities and made $15 million off a $1 billion transaction. The SEC believes the investment gave them the incentive to rip off investors and is suing Goldman.

I’ve always thought Goldman Sachs was an arrogant company. Then we gave them a $12.9 billion bailout and my discontent grew. I’ve come to believe that Goldman received special treatment at the expense of taxpayers. Henry Paulson, former Treasury secretary and former chairman of Goldman, was responsible for the bailout — one of the most incredible giveaways in the history of our country.

When you or I lose money on an investment, the government doesn’t come to bail us out. What an incredible excuse! Instead of being worth $100 billion, Goldman’s value would have been diminished. That was not a reason to give the rich and powerful of Wall Street taxpayer money, especially when Main Street America was suffering.

Congress should never have gone along with the heist and should have done all in its power to stop it, but instead it remained silent and allowed the injustice to take place.