Goldman Sachs, the largest finance company, has been charged by the regulators of fraud. At the same time the bank has reported increased profits from trading operation and increase in pay and bonuses of upto 17%. Seems that Goldman Sachs set up a subsidiary to hedge against financial instruments they were selling before the subprime loans crisis. The implication is that they were deliberately selling financial instruments which, they knew, were going to fail. Something like selling fake medicines and quietly setting up a company selling nice coffins. The financial crisis set off by the banks nearly caused a collapse of the entire financial system but bank chiefs have not shown any remorse. In fact, they have been brazen in their shamelessness and even now are lobbying vigorously to stop any reform of the financial sector. In this they are being helped by Republican lawmakers whose visceral hatred of President Obama makes them blind the kind of crooks these bankers are and the suffering of ordinary people who lost their jobs and homes. Goldman Sachs has angrily vowed to defend itself. Will charges against other banks follow? If the regulators have the courage to take on Goldman Sachs they will surely not hesitate too charge other banks. Thus the bank chiefs will be engaged in protecting their own skins and have less time for lobbying. The people are incensed at the behavior of the bankers and are anyway convinced that they are crooks. If they see Republicans trying to protect bankers they may go against them. With midterm elections just over six months away the result could be interesting. Nice timing.