Americans love pirates. With all the news of Somali corsairs commandeering U.S. flag vessels, buccaneers are getting a bad name.
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Despite their brutish history, most of us romanticize and admire the brigand, the bootlegger and the bandit. Where do think the Kennedys got all that dough?
Swashbucklers always have captured our imagination.
The pirate Jean Lafitte sailed to our rescue in the War of 1812. And Jack Sparrow smashed box office records with his cockeyed celluloid charm.
Meet Goldman Sachs – the smartest pirates on Wall Street.
Rarely a day goes by that these guys don’t find a way to turn a worthless bag of sand into a chest of dubloons.
Look at What Goldman Found
Just when you want to keelhaul the scaliwags because they’ve found a way to use bailout monies to pay bonuses, they announce that they’ve sold stock so that they can start to repay the government for the money they got from TARP. Yesterday, Goldman raised $5 billion from a stock sale that the mega-bank says already is earmarked to repay the Treasury.
Goldman’s move puts enormous pressure on other banks to follow suit. It’s also a brilliant public relations coup that takes heat off Goldman and shifts the glare of scrutiny to its competitors.
The bank’s ability to take this bold first step was buoyed by its better-than-anticipated first quarter earnings and a 54 percent jump in its stock values. Goldman shares closed yesterday at a price of $130.15 each.
Much to the chagrin of its detractors, Goldman’s numbers provide ample evidence that the first phase of the recovery — stabilizing the banking sector — is starting to take hold. Even though retail sales for March declined more than 1 percent and producer prices likewise fell, gains in the financial sector by firms like Goldman and Wells Fargo provide a glimmer that the worst recession in a generation may be slowing.
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Before converting to a regulated bank, Goldman once was the most profitable firm on Wall Street. This is no mean feat when you consider the competition. The firm always seemed be in the right place at the right time.
Along with other big banks, Goldman now is facing a government inquiry into its role in the collapse of AIG and the additional billions in government bailout monies it received through the back door of third-party payouts on its claims against credit default swaps issued by the failed insurer. Lawmakers have called for a federal probe into whether banks, including Goldman Sachs, used the implosion of AIG illicitly — as a means to squeeze bailout monies out of the government to which they were not rightfully entitled.
But as usual, Goldman seems to be sailing just ahead of the government’s long guns.
Someone ought to hire these guys to run the recovery.
Too bad we can’t afford them.
Shiver me timbers.
John Cohn is a senior partner in the Globe West Financial Group, based in West Los Angeles. He may be contacted at www.globewestfinancial.com
