Goldman's Shady Business Dealings

Why off balance sheet activities need to be on balance sheet activities. Goldman Sachs was selling CDO's to investors, while at the same time telling top clients and investors to purchase credit default swaps against the very same securities they were selling. That is wrong!

The wiki post does a nice job summarizing everything:

The complaint states that Paulson made a $1 billion profit from the short investments, while purchasers of the materials lost the same amount. The two main investors who lost money were ABN Amro and IKB Deutsche Industriebank. IKB lost $150,000,000 within months on the purchase. ABN Amro lost $840,909,090. Goldman stated the firm also lost $90 million and did not structure a portfolio that was designed to lose money. After the SEC announced the suit during the April 16, 2010 trading day, Goldman's Sachs's stock fell 13% to close at 160.70 from 184.27 on volume of over 102,000,000 shares (vs. a 52 week average of 13,000,000 shares). The firm's shares lost $10 billion in market value during the trading session. On April 30, 2010, shares tumbled further on news that the Manhattan office of the US Attorney General launched a criminal probe into Goldman Sachs, sending the stock down more than 15 points, or nearly ten percent to $145.