hyperplinks and video live at source: http://www.examiner.com/x-18425-LA-County-Nonpartisan-Examiner~y2010m1d1-Goldman-Sachs-Record-of-23-billion-in-bonuses-for...

Goldman Sachs is among the most visible financial parasites. Their executives have a revolving door through the US Treasury Department. They profit through “trading,” much like Enron did; including selling investments represented as AAA while simultaneously betting the value of those investments tank. Their CEO says they’re “doing God’s work,” as Enron’s CEO said, “We are on the side of angels.” A US Senate report puts the parasitic cost to Americans at $2 to $4 trillion every year. To put that figure into perspective, that’s an almost unbelievable $20,000 to $40,000 added cost per US household every year. Goldman Sachs is so happy with their “trading,” they’ll pay out a record of $23 billion in bonuses to their top employees for their 2009 work.

There are professionals in economics and finance using the term “parasitism” in its literal sense to describe our US economy.

The Economic Collapse website printed a brilliant explanation of Goldman Sachs’ methods: How Goldman Sachs Made Tens Of Billions Of Dollars From The Economic Collapse Of America In Four Easy Steps

The four easy steps, explained in detail in their article:

Step 1: Sell mortgage-related securities that are absolute junk to trusting clients at vastly overinflated prices.

Step 2: Bet against those same mortgage-related securities and make massive bets against the U.S. housing market so that your firm will make massive profits when the U.S. economy collapses.

Step 3: Have ex-Goldman executives in key positions of power in the U.S. government so that bailout money can be funneled to entities such as AIG that Goldman has made these bets with so that they can get paid after they win their bets.

Step 4: Collect the profits - Goldman Sachs is having their "most successful year" and will end up reporting approximately $50 billion in revenue for 2009.

Congress is working on policy to further enable the parasites; promising banksters like Goldman Sachs $4 trillion without hearings should they claim need for another “bailout.” What is the solution? Fortunately, the structural solutions are simple to enact and obvious to understand:

1.Over $1 trillion in annual public benefits from ending banks creating bank credit as debt for our monetary system, and enacting monetary reform for public-created money for the direct payment of public goods and services. This idea was supported by 86% of teaching economic professors and many of America's brightest historical minds. Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman was among the supporters, envisioning less inflation than our current monetary system.

2.Paying our $12 trillion national debt easily and without inflation as new money is created as the banks’ ability to create credit from nothing is slowed. The savings of the annual interest payment to taxpayers is over $400 billion every year.

3.Full employment. The government becomes the employer of last resort for infrastructure improvement that returns more than the cost of the projects, and thereby lowing prices.

4.2% mortgages, 6% credit cards, 5% interest paid on deposits from state-owned banks.

As a professional teacher of economics, our experience is that the above information is best communicated with a visual aid, such as through the video Money as Debt in my article on monetary reform and/or Zeitgeist Addendum.

As always, please share this article with all who can benefit. If you appreciate my work, please subscribe by clicking under the article title (it’s free). Please use my entire archive of work to help build a brighter future.

MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan gives brilliant analysis of Goldman Sachs in this 7-minute video: