Why Wall Street's more creative than Madison Avenue

Another redux from the dark and murky depths of Wall Street transactions!

According to an AP report today... "SEC accuses Goldman Sachs of defrauding investors"

D-uh!

"The (U.S) government on Friday accused Wall Street's most powerful firm of fraud, saying Goldman Sachs & Co. sold mortgage investments without telling the buyers that the securities were crafted with input from a client who was betting on them to fail.

And fail they did. The securities cost investors close to $1 billion while helping Goldman client Paulson & Co., a hedge fund, capitalize on the housing bust. The Goldman executive accused of shepherding the deal allegedly boasted about the "exotic trades" he created "without necessarily understanding all of the implications of those monstrosities!!!""

On the bright side, there was someone who understood exactly what was going on... Heck, he scripted it!

John Paulson, who runs Paulson & Co. - and surprisingly, is not a relative of former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who is himself a former Goldman CEO - understood well enough to have "[...] pocketed $3.7 billion". He wasn't entirely selfish... "His firm earned more than $15 billion in 2007".

(Just out of curiosity, how many zeros are there in all this swindle?)

Apparently Mr. Paulson, John not Henry, wasn't quite done... "He has since earned billions more, largely by betting against bank stocks and then buying them back after their shares plunged."

And the best part of it all...

The Goldman executive who engineered the deal which he understood nothing about "has since been promoted to executive director of Goldman Sachs International in London!"

Capital stuff, this!