This Week in Financial Sarcasm: Goldman Sachs, Charles Schwab, Formula Capital & the SEC

Goldman Sachs issued a new corporate policy banning the use
of all swear words and even the use of bleeped swear words such as f***k and s**t
from corporate emails and texts sent on corporate issued cell phones. The new
policy comes on the heels of recent embarrassing leaks of profanity-laced
emails that were made public in Congressional testimony including Goldman
executive Tom Montag’s email that stated about a then current $600 million
Goldman issuance of Timberwolf CDOs: “Boy, that Timberwolf was one shitty
deal.”  Within three weeks of
selling Australian hedge fund Basis Capital $78 million of Timberwolf CDOs and
assuring Basis Capital that the market for CDOs had stabilized, Goldman Sachs
began making significant margin calls on these very securities. Next up for
consideration, Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein stated that he will be considering
banning lying, cheating and stealing from Goldman activities as well.

In other news, the Obama administration’s record of “yes”
means “no” and “more transparency” 
really means “less transparency” continues.  Upon its passing, President Obama lauded the Frank-Dodd
Financial Reform Bill and stated that the bill would “increase transparency in
financial dealings.” A closer look at the bill has revealed that the bill
actually increases secrecy by exempting the SEC from disclosing records or
information derived from “surveillance, risk assessments, or other
regulatory and oversight activities”, including all requests filed through the
Freedom of Information Act. This provision covers almost every action by the
agency, lawyers have stated. As a result of the new financial reform bill, the SEC stated that the American public no longer has a right to know how many
hours a day its employees are watching porn instead of performing their
regulatory duties.

Charles Schwab’s Chief Investment Strategist Liz Ann Sonders
stated that given the “pretty good” fundamentals of US markets, and “absolutely
fantastic” earnings of US corporations this earnings season, investors need to
take advantage of current volatility by buying into the market now and sticking
to a “long term” strategy as any short-term activities like taking profits from
short-term trades or placing puts on the S&P500 as a hedge against a likely imminent large fall would be at “their [investors’] peril”. Despite the fact that
this last rally in the US markets has been obviously rigged and manufactured
and non-existent trading volume has spawned 1%+ up and down days
in recent months with frightening regularity, Sonders states that her personal CCI is at least three deviations above the rest of America’s CCI because as an investment authority, it’s quite easy to hypnotize the masses with b.s. propaganda.

Finally James Altucher, Managing Director of Formula
Capital, also joined the “now is the best time ever to buy US stocks” bandwagon
by warning investors not to buy gold despite the ongoing buying opportunity
this dip presents, because, as he so wisely claims, gold is nothing but a
“rock”.  And of course, all Westerners already know that you can not eat a rock and a rock does not pay interest. Altucher claims investors should load up on US stocks because they
are trading at the lowest point in five decades right now in terms of “earnings yield versus interest
rates”.

In response to all this recent affliction of insanity among US investment strategists and advisers, the Barnum & Bailey
Circus announced that they will be increasing annual salaries for their clowns to
$250,000 with 5 weeks paid vacation in addition to allowing them to freely cuss anytime they want in emails and in
texts (as long as the texts are not sent to children). A Barnum & Bailey spokesperson stated that
the main reason for the significant salary increase was a direct response to the commercial investment industry’s offering of high priced salaries for registered clowns and a renewed commitment of the circus to the retention of their most excellent and talented clowns.

P.S. We’ll be back with a substantive, non-satirical piece soon regarding our current monetary crisis.

Related posts:

1. Goldman Sachs: ‘No Indication’ Of SEC Settlement Over Abacus Deal
2. Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission Subpoenas Goldman Sachs
3. Goldman Sachs Subpoenaed By Financial Crisis Panel For Withholding Key Info
4. Here’s The Real Cost Of The SEC Charges Against Goldman Sachs (GS)
5. Raymond J. Learsy: The New York Times’ Timely Whitewash of Goldman Sachs