HOW GOLDMAN SACKS YOUR PORTFOLIO

What are three quick ways to climb the corporate ladder at Goldman Sachs?

According to former Goldman Sachs executive director, Greg Smith, you need to do the following:

1. Persuade clients to invest in the stocks or other products that Goldman is trying to dump.
2. Even if it's wrong for the client, sell them whatever will bring the biggest profit to Goldman (i.e. “Hunt Elephants").
3. Secure a desk where your job is to trade any illiquid, opaque product with a three-letter acronym.

Got that? You sell Goldman's garbage. Or you find suckers clients with deep pockets (like local governments) to buy up risky but potentially "high yield" products. Even better, you can specialize in selling products that federal regulators find difficult to track and, only with great difficulty, can assign blame.

You shouldn't be surprised by any of this (nor be swayed by Goldman Sachs' lame response to Smith). Michael Lewis wrote all about the culture and practices of Wall Street that Smith discusses in Liar's Poker ... back in 1989!

Regardless of what people like Alan Greenspan say, the collapse of 2008 was not an aberration. The looting of America is deliberate, and has been going on for quite a while now.

- Mark