Wait a minute. We now know that the structure required permanently rising housing values and that the government enabled the whole enterprise (which makes it stunningly hypoocritical to even level these charges without having the grace to include themselves). We only suspected it then. Goldman, Sachs people were smarter than the average bear (or bull) and knew to bet against a flimsy structure they were basically being ordered to construct and vend.
This is at least a diversion, and is probably a propaganda tool to push complete government control of the financial system and is certainly a red herring to cover government malfeasance in the whole operation, going back at least as far as Clinton and probably as far back as Carter.
A private hedge fund cannot "order" Goldman to construct and vend a security. In this case, John Paulson, a private HF manager, made a deal with Goldman to construct a packaged structure specifically so Paulson could bet against it. Goldman made money on the structuring, and I'm sure got a nice chunk of change from John Paulson. They then marketed the deal as if it was composed of worthwhile investments, even though they purposely structured it to be composed of investments that were expected to fail.
I have no problem with people making money in the markets by betting against the herd, but in this case the deal crossed a line into the territory marked "abject fraud."
This is the mortgage meltdown equivalent of Henry Blodgett giving buy ratings to Amazon stock at the same time he privately said the stock was a piece of excrement.