I just got through reading an article in Rolling Stone Magazine, by Matt Taibbi, titled "The Great American Bubble Machine." Here's the link
The piece attempts to support the following theory: "From tech stocks to high gas prices, Goldman Sachs has engineered every major market manipulation since the Great Depression -- and they're about to do it again."
I say, "hey, if Goldman managed to pull all that off, then good for them. Frankly, i'm glad they did and I hope they 'Keep on Truckin." (To quote a popular phrase and tatoo from the 1970s). And no I don't own any shares of Goldman or any investments in which Goldman Sachs might have a stake.
I should, however, also say that I never bought or sold any shares of "tech" stocks or "dotcom" stocks or their derivatives in the 90s. And I never bough or sold shares of financial instruments created from sub-prime mortgages in the 00s or obtained any "liar-loan"-type mortgages that were so commonly available simultaneously. And I never made any investments in oil or commodities this decade either. (I can't use youth and lack of financial resources as excuses either -- I was of adult age and working starting in 1993).
As such, Goldman's alleged nefarious, though likely not entirely illegal, business over the last 15 years was no skin directly off my back.
But I must also add the following personal insight: You end up paying a steep, nearly always hidden "price" when you do as I did and stay clear of the financial norms of the day. You pay in social ridicule. And you pay in -- I presume - "stress" for losing the potential of (extreme) capital appreciation you may have experienced otherwise.
Bucking the norm puts you between a rock and a hard-place. But in the end, you don't look back and wonder how all that capital appreciation you may have achieved suddenly evaporated; you don't look back and second-guess your own judgement.
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