Rolling Stone Article Puts Goldman Sachs at Blame for Country's Problems

Contributing editor of the Rolling Stones, Matt Taibbi, wrote an article in Rolling Stone Issue 1082-83 titled "The Great American Bubble Machine" in which he contributed many of the problems of the past two decades to Goldman Sachs and other large banks. The 12-page spread was an unusual article to be published by Rolling Stone, which usually features articles based on the entertainment business.

Taibbi describes how, in his opinion, Goldman Sachs contributed to ast year's run-up in oil prices, the tech-sector boom and bust at the turn of the century and the current mortgage crisis. And not to his surprise, the company was able to give billions in bonuses and salary raises at the end of 2008, when the US was amidst one of its worst economic times.

Goldman Sachs is active in the community and creates positive publicity through that, however GS is generally press-shy. In response to this very popular issue, Lucas Van Praag, bank's spokesman, spoke out. "[Taibbi's] story is an hysterical compilation of consipracy theories. Notable ones missing are Goldman Sachs as the third shooter [in John F. Kennedy's assassination] and faking the first lunar landing. We reject the assertion that we are inflators of bubbles and profiteers in busts, and we are painfully conscious of the importance in being a force for good."

When researching more information on responses made by Goldman Sachs, it was difficult to find. GS really does have a way of keeping its opinions out of the press...which is odd since they are in it day, after day, after day. The most popular amounts of hits had to do with press that was bad about Goldman Sachs. They did not do a good job in defending the positions and actions of the company over the past few decades, and most importantly right now.

If I was in the PR department of Goldman Sachs I would question the boldness of Taibbi and the validity of his statements. As an employee of a financial company we deal with numbers and more importanly dollar signs. Since he critiqued and bashed the use of our dollar signs, I would challenge him to explain how he arose at the numbers that we apparantly profited off of. We would also question the statements made about how we have affected the normal citizens of our country. We would advise him to look into more about our company and discover the enormous good we do for our citizens.