Are the Goldman Sachs executives testifying at today’s governmental affairs hearing sorry? Do they have regrets about their role in the financial crisis?
Sure doesn’t sound like it.
“Regret to me means something that you feel that you did wrong,” said former Goldman partner Dan Sparks. “And I don’t have that.”
What I do have though is — we made mistakes in our business, like any business does. And we made some poor business decisions in hindsight.
But did Goldman Sachs play a part in causing the financial crisis?
“I don’t know,” Sparks said. “I’d like to think about that and respond. I haven’t thought about that specifically.”
What about you, Joshua Birnbaum?
“I would second what Mr. Sparks said,” said Birnbaum, former managing director of the banks’ structured products group trading. “We’re all sympathetic to the negative impact to that bubble.”
And “to the extent that investment banks and commercial banks may have extended too much credit at certain periods of time,” Birnbaum said, “then it’s possible” Goldman played a role.
Michael Swenson — who now holds Birnbaum’s old job — was more definitive.
“We did not cause the financial crisis,” he said. “I do not think we did anything wrong.”
“There’s things that we wish we could have done better in hindsight, but at the times that we made the decisions, I don’t think we did anything wrong,” Swenson said.
And Fabrice Tourre, who boasted by email of selling financial products to a “widow and orphans”?
“I firmly believe that my conduct was correct,” Tourre said.
Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR) looked like he wanted to sigh loudly. “I do sense that you all are not taking full responsibilities.”
