**CAF Note: You bet they planned this!**
By Laura Gottesdiener
“One s****y deal.” “S****y deal.” “S****y.” The date was April 27, 2010, and Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich.) was pissed as he launched into a rant with those pungent quotes in it. As part of a Senate subcommittee investigation into the causes of the financial meltdown, Levin was grilling Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein and several other current and former Goldman higher-ups about their roles in that crisis and in particular the exotic, opaque investment deals they had created and peddled.
What had Levin steaming mad were internal emails revealing that, on the cusp of the financial crisis, Goldman staffers knew that they were selling crummy investments. Levin’s tirade was inspired by an email in which a Goldman staffer describes a product he’s selling as “one s****y deal.” That, of course, did not stop Goldman from selling such products. Not only that, but the firm’s traders later bet against those deals to make even more money! Contempt, thy name is Goldman.
