goldman sachs

Goldman Sachs Basically Benefited From 9/11, Implies News Story

At this point, it’s become so fashionable to hate Goldman Sachs that it’s actually unfashionable, and yet, the drip-drip of stories of slights suffered and crimes perpetrated by the firm keep coming. Today, Bloomberg ups the ante with a nearly 4,000-word rehashing of how Goldman Sachs became synonymous with “vampire squid” that hinges on this bit of news:


Goldman Sachs also benefited from the government’s determination to avoid losing jobs in lower Manhattan after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Building a new headquarters cater-cornered to where the World Trade Center once stood qualified the firm to sell $1 billion of tax-free Liberty Bonds and get about $49 million of job-grant funds, tax exemptions and energy discounts.

First of all, why not just headline the story “Goldman Sachs Benefited From 9/11,” Bloomberg, because that is clearly the audience you’re trying to reach? We guess you can’t, since that would be grotesquely untrue. Second, what exactly are you telling us here? That Goldman Sachs took advantage of tax breaks to get a discount on a new headquarters? That they ran a cost-benefit analysis and came away thinking, hey, that’s a pretty good deal for us? YOU DON’T SAY.

First of all, why not just headline the story “Goldman Sachs Benefited From 9/11,” Bloomberg, because that is clearly the audience you’re trying to reach? We guess you can’t, since that would be grotesquely untrue. Second, what exactly are you telling us here? That Goldman Sachs took advantage of tax breaks to get a discount on a new headquarters? That they ran a cost-benefit analysis and came away thinking, hey, that’s a pretty good deal for us? YOU DON’T SAY.

Of course they did! That’s what they do. Also breaking: They sometimes package bunches of crap and make it look attractive so that they can sell it for more money. You know who else does that? The makers of CEREAL. The guy who runs American Apparel. Oh, and pretty much everyone else because that is what business is. In this case, Goldman Sachs’s new tower helped keep a lot of jobs in lower Manhattan, despite the ice-skating snafu, so we can’t say we’re all that bothered. Honestly, news cycle, bring us some real evidence that Goldman had something to do with the intelligence saying there were WMDs in Iraq, or get the hell out of our office.

Taxpayers Help Goldman Reach Height of Profit in New Skyscraper [Bloomberg]

Goldman Sachs Basically Benefited From 9/11, Implies News Story