The Senate panel investigating Goldman Sachs will have an easier job if it embraces one profound truth, Jonathan Weil writes for Bloomberg: "What you must realize, foremost, is that Goldman's employees speak their own distinct language." Some translations:
- Sophisticated, as in "among the most sophisticated mortgage investors in the world," means "susceptible to predators, all in all an easy mark."
- A market maker is a firm that "usually employs at least one French-speaking broker who takes orgasmic pleasure in persuading widows and orphans to buy CDOs that he thinks were designed to fail."
- The PR term hedged creates 'the outward impression that a Wall Street bank never bore any risk," but beware: "Effective only when the actual facts are unverifiable."
- Blindside: "To catch a Wall Street bank off guard about a material event, such as an SEC fraud lawsuit."
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