Blankfein told Levin he never knew that some entities coud only purchase triple A rated securities

[eleny]

And I hear that he doesn't know anything about birthing babies, either.

[Demeter]

1. That's a DUzy, for sure!

[TK421]

2. I've been watching this all day long...his squirming around is driving me nuts

but in a good way

As far as the market-makers that were introduced earlier today, they were all a bunch of lying weasles...you could just tell by their body movements and speech.

That Swenson guy had the look of a deer caught in Levin's headlights

[eleny]

3. I kept thinking that Swenson was a weak link

Squeeze him and he'd pop. There wasn't a sweatier attitude than his today even if Blankfein's head was terribly shiny under the lights.

Btw, Blankenfein was beyond annoying rifling through the book trying to waste time finding the right page for this or that point that Levin was making. I wanted to reach out and slap the book onto the floor.

[TK421]

4. For such smart guys, they all had a great bit of difficulty just getting to

the page each senator was on....and I forget who it was ( I believe it was McCaskill ) who had asked a question of one of them, given the runaround and turned to ( Levin? ) saying "Do you get the impression that these gentleman are just trying to eat up the clock"? or something to that effect

Birnbaum struck me as an arrogant prick, and Tourre is most definitely hiding something. That Sparks guy was the worst

[FarCenter]

5. Business people know that talk is just bullshit

It has to be in writing to be real.

[AmericaIsGreat]

6. Pretty amazing

He easily acknowledged that he did NOT believe there was a conflict of interest when GS sold junk securities to customers, but he manipulated the circumstances, speaking from the point of view that GS sold something to someone which later become a bad deal (although, at the time, it seemed a good one) and that that is simply nature of the volatility of markets. Senators fairly tried to point out that GS knew these were SHITTY deals when they made them but he insisted it was all done with good faith. It wasn't really getting through.

Also that people "shouldn't care" that GS is not disclosing when they consider mortgage-backed securities they sell CRAP because, after all, the customer asked for "exposure to housing."

At least he seemed to invite reform. He agreed on limits on capital vs risk, regulation of derivatives, and even suggested a couple of potential rules the gov't can put into place.

It seems clear GS did not do anything illegal, just something extremely unethical that destroyed the economy. Regulation is needed now.

[hobbit709]

7. Too bad the Pinocchio effect isn't real

It would be interesting to see how long his nose could get.