Fareed is having a round table right now about the Goldman Sachs lawsuit, with Eliot Spitzer, Martin Wolf of the Financial Times and Andrew Ross Sorkin of the NYT. They quickly get to the heart of the suit (what it's about, how much merit there is in the case) and also the broader implications for Wall Street and the economy. It's a great discussion.
Oh, yeah, Amity Shlaes is there too, and contributing nothing. Zakaria tossed her an easy one about how Ben Bernacke's actions in creating liquidity were informed by his study of the Great Depression, and she babbled something barely coherent about Bernacke thinking he's a cardiologist. The other three are making precise, informed statements of fact, and Shlaes keeps trying to talk in generalities and metaphor. It's embarrassing, frankly.
As for Goldman Sachs? Still hemorrhaging value. Their stock price has dropped about 15% since the SEC's announcement last Friday. As Spitzer said during the panel, the suit is an almost existential crisis for Goldman and Wall Street. It's finally starting to seep out to the public exactly what it is they do, and how completely superfluous it is to the economy.
Whether they win or lose the SEC's suit is almost irrelevant.
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