No Need to Worry About Goldman Sachs During the Pandemic

Mateusz Slodkowski/SOPA Images via ZUMA

For indispensable reporting on the coronavirus crisis, the election, and more, subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily newsletter.You may have lost your job thanks to COVID-19. Or maybe you’ve drained your savings. That’s a shame, but I have some good news to take the sting out of your misfortune: Wall Street is still doing fine. Goldman Sachs earned nearly $4 billion in its most recent quarter:
Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s third-quarter profit nearly doubled, the latest confirmation that, even in a pandemic and a recession, Wall Street can still make money….Worries that the coronavirus would rival 2008 as a threat to the U.S. financial system have subsided for now. Banks’ trading fees have surged. Bond investors’ appetite has allowed companies that borrowed billions from banks in emergency loans this spring to pay them back. Big corporate bankruptcies have leveled off.
….Goldman has had a relatively easy crisis so far. Efforts by the Federal Reserve to support markets have allowed the firm to move loans off its books and reap fees by buying and selling securities.
In fairness to the Fed, they may have helped Goldman but they’ve also tried to help the rest of us by appealing to Congress to pass a coronavirus aid/stimulus package. Congress hasn’t done it yet, but that’s only because Republican dedication to screwing the working class outweighs even its own sense of self-preservation.