Goldman hearing gets going

Here are the CNBC and Fox Business links. By the way, Vanity Fair writer Bethany McLean (one of the first reporters to pick up on Enron) has a NYT oped that lays into all the Wall Street players responsible for the financial crisis.

The transaction at the heart of the S.E.C.'s complaint is a microcosm of the entire credit crisis. That is, there are no good guys here. It's dishonest and ultimately dangerous to pretend that Goldman is the only bad actor. And the worst actor of all is the one leading the charge against Goldman: our government. Each of the supposed victims here was, at best, a willing accomplice.

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Whether the transaction was legal or not, there's a difference between what's legal and what's right. Goldman, where I worked at a junior level from 1992 to 1995, has always held itself up as a firm that adheres to a higher standard. "Integrity and honesty are at the heart of our business" is one of Goldman's 14 principles. There is no way to square this principle with the accusation that Goldman did not tell a customer who didn't want to lose money -- the very definition of a buyer of AAA-rated securities -- that the investment it was selling had been rigged to amplify the chances that it would, yes, lose money.