Goldfinger said: “My friends in Chicago have a saying, Mr. Bond. Once is Happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time, it’s enemy action.

Someone at The New York Times must be reading my blog.

Just as I started weaving my very creative and cogent conspiracy theory about the Gupta case ( my conspiracy theories always turn out to be true, you’ll notice) they trot out this article explaining that Goldman may be paying for Gupta, but they really hate doing it because Gary Naftalis, Gupta’s lawyer, is saying all those mean, mean things about them.

“To say that Goldman Sachs has paid Gupta’s legal bills grudgingly would be an understatement. Not only did Gupta abuse his role as a Goldman director, the jury determined, but Gupta’s lawyers assailed the bank throughout the trial.”

But all that is beside the point. The point is Gupta didn’t win what should have been an easy case. 

For $30 million bucks, a very high sum even for such a high–profile case, I wouldn’t take anything except a win.

So slamming Goldman means nothing.

People say nasty things about Goldman all day long, and all they’re doing is letting off steam.

I bet the powers-that-be are quite happy for people to let off steam. They get to know what everyone’s thinking without the bother of opinion-polls. And they know if you’re venting on a blog, you’re unlikely to be blowing up a bridge, hacking a military computer, or putting together a legal brief that would really put some of the BigBoyz away.

Stomping around, muttering  and swearing, is a fairly safe thing to do, unless in your muttering, you’re also puncturing the hot-air balloons floated by the establishment.

[That’s our thankless but quite enjoyable task on this blog. Not that you’ll find any “hero of liberty” here. Heroes should be prepared to die. We’re not even willing to be sued.]

Anyway, back to Naftalis. It’s not the cussing out of Goldman that counts. It’s the evidence supporting the defense.

In the final count, Naftalis wasn’t able to get the evidence through to Rakoff – that’s all that matters and that’s what worries me…and has me worrying that the fix is in.

So The NY Times gets E, for effort, for making the PR case for Goldman so swiftly, but B- for plausibility.

I’ll stick with my Goldman Fix conspiracy for now.

The NYTimes goes on:

“They depicted Goldman as a cesspool of tipsters feeding Rajaratnam inside information. A defense lawyer called Lloyd C. Blankfein, Goldman’s chief executive who was forced to testify for three days, “cold and callous.”

Lila: Well, dah-links (in my best Zsa-Zsa manner) there were Goldman tipsters running around all over the place. And  it would be human to suspect Lloyd Blankfein didn’t exactly keep a zipped lip from sunrise to sundown, did he?

On prattles the conscience of the nation:

“….The “cold and callous” remark about Mr. Blankfein came from a defense lawyer who said that Mr. Blankfein didn’t remember laying off about 3,000 people during the financial crisis. A spokesman for the bank accused the lawyer of distorting Mr. Blankfein’s testimony.”

Oh dear. This gets more entertaining by the minute.

Where have we heard those words before?

Why, it’s straight out of —

Goldfinger!

Goldfinger, he`s the man, the man with the Midas touch
A spider`s touch
Such a cold finger beckons you to enter his web of sin
But don`t go in
Golden words he will pour in your ear
But his lies can`t disguise what you fear…

...Golden words he will pour in your ear
But his lies can`t disguise what you fear
For a golden girl knows when he`s kissed her
It`s the kiss of death from Mister
Goldfinger, pretty girl, beware of this heart of gold
This heart is cold
He loves only gold
Only gold
He loves gold
He loves only gold
Only gold
He loves gold!!!!!!

With suitable “ed-jessment” for gender…. and agenda…and minus all the hard evidence (wire-taps of actual tips being passed by Goldman tipsters), that’s what the defense amounted to – Goldfinger!

LOL

Of course, it’s not too far from the facts, come to think of it.

We know Lloyd Blankfein came out of  J. Aron, the trading company. As did Gary Cohn. We pointed out what Blankfein’s trading background meant for the firm back in 2006 at Money Week.

Lloyd was originally a gold trader himself.

And both Blankfein and Cohn have been named as the source of Goldman’s problems in the recent past, by managing director Greg Smith, who jumped ship publicly this March.

So a Goldfinger defense actually works (or, rather, it should have worked).

More Lulz..

(To be continued in the next post)