[goody2shooz]

"Goldman Sachs never forced anyone to buy anything when I was chairman, I can tell you that," he [Corzine] insisted.

Everyone notice that he did not say they refrained from misrepresenting the stocks, or from providing all the facts of the fundamentals of the institution offering the shares?

I used to work in a boiler room telephoning contactees for brokers. Oh boy! Putting lipstick on pigs was what we did well. Couldn't stomach the work for long, probably for the same reason I found working in Land Use Planning so objectionable. When you have integrity, cheating people makes you sick.

[goody2shooz]

"or from providing" = "or provided"

[lelio]

Of course GS didn't "force" anyone to buy stocks. However if you didn't buy the stocks then they didn't do business with you. Gives GS deniability.

[blackdog]

The really funny issue is that the brokerages manage mutual funds. These funds have managers who hire accountants and analysts to review the businesses who's stocks, bonds, and securities they include(buy) into their fund. What really tickles me, is just what were these fund-level managers, accountants, and analysts doing exactly? For how many years? And people complain about government workers collecting a check for doing nothing? These were people making a few hundred grand a year to report back on the health and integrity of the stocks the funds were aquiring!

Shoot the bastards!

[StriperSniper]

I think this is better:

"I don't believe there is ever going to be anything that sticks about us at Goldman Sachs forcing anybody to buy anything," said the senator from New Jersey,

Anything that sticks! He sounds like Gotti! (Who I hold in higher esteem than Corzine)