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There's a paywall on the article. I'm not sure but perhaps the article is referring to this blog from 2017...

https://www.goldmansachs.com/c...

If you read through it, they're open sourcing their plumbing. There's no analytical components listed, just propriety systems they created for which equivalent technologies already exist.

In any case the access to real time market data is far more valuable than the intellectual property of the software processing it. Companies like Goldman Sachs know that their true advantage is their ability to buy and sell before anyone else has a chance purely because of the physical network connections these sorts of companies enjoy. They could give away all their software, it may allow you to garnish some insights on how they operate but it wouldn't reduce their competitive advantage.

They're only worth trillions if the demand says so. And demand will not continue for ever - coal is already almost flat. Peak Oil will take longer, but the writing on the wall is already visible, with EVs predicted to make up one quarter of the global market in just 10 years.

You are rather backed by your opinions and guesses ABOUT science... Now those opinions might be reasonable and the guesses could be educated... but they are not science.

They are not "opinions" or "guesses". They are probabilities, backed by a great deal of evidence - like virtually everything in science. Higgs Boson existence? Probability. The Big Bang? Probability. Quantum mechanics? Yeah, a lot of that. To be scientific, a theory does not have to be a certainty at all; the probability just needs to be carefully quantified, and backed by observation and/or experiment.

...you have overstated your reasonable degree of confidence on issues for political gain. This has been done repeatedly which is why many of the IPCC reports have come under such savage criticism

Citation needed. The IPCC reports all state their conclusions in probabilities, which are carefully quantified, and are backed by citations of peer-reviewed studies at every stage. The vast majority of the evidence presented in the IPCC reports has proved under very close examination to be solid (NOT absolutely certain, but of sound scientific methodology). This is why they are accepted as, not the gospel truth, but the best information on the subject that we have, by every major scientific institution and government, as well as by the great majority of scientists (and nearly all climatologists).

It is THAT which is ultimately causing most of the controversy. Not the science but rather the political solution to the science.

I do agree that this is the source of the controversy. Solutions are indeed often political, but unfortunately all too often, peoples' political views about some of the solutions contaminate their views of the science, which usually leads to claims that the science itself is being politicised. I disagree with that.

Or you must sit down and talk about solutions we can all find palatable.

If only we could do that. Unfortunately, there are still far too many strident voices still trying to undermine the science, which blocks any reasonable discussion of solutions. If those voices actually had any peer-reviewed evidence of a quality that could convince a reasonable number of experts, that would be fine, but sadly these dissenting voices tend to rely on volume instead.

I'm also of the opinion that many people misunderstand the solutions that have been proposed (for example, see all the claims that a phased transition to a carbon-neutral economy would be a disastrous burden on society, whereas many economists are seeing it as an opportunity for actually reducing the many existing external costs of carbon emissions).

It's almost like making a former goldman sachs employee the head of the ECB... oh... wait.

Let us say, just for the sake of argument, that the AGWers are correct. What do you expect us to do? Don't say "cap and trade" because it is a scam that will kill the economy while making billionaires out of those pushing it (surprise surprise) and the cost of converting just the USA to electric cars would probably break us, if the production could even be ramped up that high. Not to mention simple logic states that cars that run on massive batteries won't last for shit in places like the south, where the heat and humidity will kill them dead quickly.

So I'd love to hear a solution other than "line the pockets of Wall street leeches and Al Gore", because I honestly haven't heard anything else from the AGW camp. The simple fact is after years of searching we simply haven't found anything with the energy density of oil, and short of wiping out a good 60% of the world's population and going back to a pre-industrial society I don't see anything on the board that will cause any real change. After all China and India will tell you where to put your cap and trade, along with the rest of the third world, and the resulting shift as what remaining businesses jump overseas to avoid cap and trade will make outsourcing look pleasant by comparison. And with 2 wars and record deficits along with high unemployment is isn't like Americans could afford cap and trade anyway, unless you want the fed to just tack it onto our already insane debt.

So unless we come up with some magical McGuffin to fix it, I really don't see it making much of a difference. We simply don't have the money or resources to change our current direction ATM, and the last thing any politician will do right now is stick thousands more on the average Joe in electric and fuel bills in an economy that is starting to smell like death. So I'd really like to hear some real solutions, because cap and trade will be about as helpful as "too big to fail" was in the long run.

The problem is this is NOTHING but a catholic indulgences scam, and because carbon can't be weighed on a scale, it is beyond ripe for abuse and manipulation by leeches like GS, and hey, guess what? It is ALREADY BEING ABUSED! Wow, what are the odds?

You want to see how your precious carbon credits will work? Here you go-market is set up, major corps find loopholes that let them not change a SINGLE DROP of carbon emissions while still selling their "excess carbon" on a market manipulated all to fuck by GS and other leeches, meanwhile China, India, and the other coming up third world countries tell you to go fuck yourselves, while the shitholes third world countries line up for their free money for not being "carbon abusers" which will come straight from YOUR pocket, and you know what? They'll get it too.

You want to get rid of carbon? Ban ALL vehicles (including limos) that get less than X MPG, shut down every coal plant, along with giving every plant that spews out more than X amount of carbon per year six months to clean up their act, and every year you raise X. Tada! I'm a fucking genius! but this is NOT about carbon, never was. This is about Al Gore becoming a cabon billionaire and Goldman Sachs being ready to latch onto your wallet while for some damned reason guys like you support giving them your money?

I'll tell you what, since you are a carbon sinner, why don't you just write a check for 45% of your income to GS and old Al, and leave the rest of our wallets the fuck alone,kay?

Criminals?

Yours In Smolensk,
Kilgore T.

No I'm saying he is a fat Lear Jet flying, McMansion owning (have you SEEN his fucking house? I've driven by it, you can power a couple of neighborhoods off what the fat bastard is blowing on AC alone) hypocrite who has the brass balls to pay HIMSELF "carbon credits" for blowing around in his Lear while he tells us to ride the fucking bus!

And if you actually buy into carbon credits? Then I'd really like to sell you some swamp land, almost gator free! Carbon credits will be so rife with abuse it will make credit default swaps look legit, the ones pushing for it like Rev Al (who to me is as big a self serving douchebag as Sharpton) and his buddies at Goldman Sachs are set to make billions by..well being a bunch of fucking worthless leeches, can't think of a nicer way to put it, and all the while it will do exactly jack and shit about carbon, because China will tell us where we can put our credits.

I look at it this way, if your spokesman is a total douche you've got trouble. I haven't seen ANYONE call out old Al for being a giant fucking hypocrite, or for having a major conflict of interest, instead they just let old Al hop up to the mike and not say a damned word. It reminds me of race relations, in that everyone knows racism is bad. Everyone knows treating people like shit because they are a different color, race, sexual orientation is wrong. But it doesn't matter how right that message is when old Rev. Al Sharpton gets his fat ass up to the mike and starts spreading his bullshit, because everyone thinks "Fucking douchebag!" and tunes out.

The same thing is happening here, with a bunch of self interested pricks hijacking the conversation and trying to steer it into their bank accounts. Until someone high up in AGW tells Al's ass to GTFO many are gonna say "douchebag" and tune out. And credit default swaps...err..I mean carbon credits, should be treated like the catholic indulgences scam that it is. To use the famous /. car analogy, It doesn't matter how important your message is if your messenger is as trustworthy as a used car salesman with a dodgy 74 Barracuda.

GS had no material exposure to AIG:
http://www2.goldmansachs.com/our-firm/press/viewpoint/viewpoint-articles/aig-summary.html

I currently write software used to value structured financial transactions such as mortgage backed securities. I am over qualified for my job, but one of very few people in the world that is not under qualified for it.

Since when is a Master's overqualified? Please take a stop at 85 Broad St. some day. PhDs are all over the place, Master's are a dime a dozen. Your saying that you're overqualified is some of the biggest hubris I've ever seen on here.

China has stated publicly as long ago as 2005 that they wanted to move away from the USD. Here's one source from January 2006 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/09/AR2006010901042_pf.html

Sure, they can't do it too quickly without hurting themselves - but if they do it right, they can end up owning a huge chunk of the US. Flood the market with USD, and when the banks crash, buy them.

>"It's erroneous to believe that China would willingly walk away as the US economy tanked... that is, until their domestic market makes our market seem like a drop in the bucket. I give it at least three generations, probably more, until the Chinese middle class has developed enough."

Read this: http://www2.goldmansachs.com/insight/research/reports/99.pdf

Your 3 generations is actually less than 1 generation. By 2039, the US economy will be smaller than China. India will be right behind the US. Also, the report goes on to say that they expect other curencies to appreciate by up to 300% against the USD - a polite way of saying that the dollar is expected to shrink in value by 2/3. This was BEFORE the current financial crisis.

Nasty stuff.

Here's one which sprung to mind right away - Goldman Sachs came into posession of a vast tract of pristine wilderness in Chile. Rather than selling it to developers they donated it to a wildlife charity who are now managing it as a 680,000 acre nature preserve. I can assure you the cost (both in direct expense and lost profit opportunity) of this was far from trivial, and certainly no-one would have even noticed if they'd gone the conventional route and liquidated the asset through a sale.