by Pam Martens and Russ Martens
Wall Street on Parade
It’s starting to feel like Goldman Sachs has an insatiable appetite for scandal. Thanks to Matt Taibbi, Goldman is already known around the world as “a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.” Most recently, Goldman jammed its blood funnel into the 1MDB sovereign wealth fund of Malaysia, resulting in a criminal indictment by the Malaysian government followed by a settlement with Malaysia for $3.9 billion. In October criminal charges were brought in the same matter by the U.S. Department of Justice against Goldman, resulting in another $2.9 billion in fines by U.S. and foreign regulators.
The heavily publicized 1MDB scandal has filled headlines for the past five years. The Justice Department just settled its 1MDB charges against Goldman four weeks ago. Now Goldman is already back in the tabloid headlines for handling a sexual harassment case so shoddily that it seems like the multi-national bank has some kind of psychological need to perpetually sabotage its reputation.