Goldman Uses Wall Street’s Favorite Reporter to Make Unpersuasive Defense Against Levin Report
Last night, the Wall Street Journal reported that Goldman was going on the offensive against the Levin report:
Goldman Sachs Group Inc., trying to counter a Senate subcommittee report that is fueling investigations and suspicion of the firm, plans to accuse the subcommittee of drastically overstating Goldman’s bets against the housing market in 2007….
The subcommittee’s 639-page report in April denounced Goldman as an unusually strong example of wrongdoing by financial firms during the crisis. According to the report, Goldman systematically sought to profit from a “big short” against the housing market and betrayed clients by putting the firm’s own interests ahead of theirs.
Goldman initially said it disagreed “with many of the conclusions of the report,” though the company added that it takes “seriously the issues explored by the subcommittee.”
Tonight, Andrew Ross Sorkin of the New York Times offers what appears to be a preview of the Goldman defense. If this is the sort of thing Goldman plans to provide, it is not terribly convincing.
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