Not Stiglitz too (Dumping on Goldman)

Which is exactly the point I am making in the pay thread...profits from trading are not what the market was created for, but it has now become so commonplace that everyone just accepts it. It concentrates money into the hands of few and encourages excessive risk taking. It also opens itself up to market manipulation...It is ironic because staunch capitalists believe in less regulation, but without regulation around trading rules it works counter to the goals of capitalism

Reasonable profits from secondary trading are good. Support of the secondary market aides liquidity. The Black Rock announcement is positive. Trading CDS on an exchange is positive. Huge trading profits on Wall Street mean Main Street is getting ripped off.

..But we should go back to Glass Stegal.... of course

I'm not against Wall Street profits.

What I am against is banks paying 90% of them out as salaries. The folks who provide the capital should be getting a CONSIDERABLY bigger piece of the pie.

I'm not against Wall Street profits either.
But there is something wrong, as nyc points out money is not flowing back to share holder equity. There's something wrong with the Share-holder vs Board of Directors relationship. I also don't like how profits are accounted for when deciding bonuses....
Case in point
a CDO IS structured to maximize residual profit. they do a resent value of the trade(structure) and use it for bonus calculations. Did hey make this money?? NO!!!