Goldman’s $500 Million Is Day Late, Dollar Short: Mark Gilbert So now we know the value Goldman Sachs Group Inc. places on salving its conscience for screwing up what Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein called “God’s work.” It seems that $500 million is all it takes to compensate the world for Goldman’s role in creating the credit crunch.

Valuing Bonds, Dollar Is Crazy in World Gone Mad: Mark Gilbert “In price is knowledge,” one editor used to scream at me. Whether or not you believed in efficient markets, you could be sure the price of a bond, a currency or a commodity was trying to tell you something about the outlook for growth, inflation or monetary policy; all you had to do was listen and translate.

Cash Binge to End as Central Banks Jive to Exit: Mark Gilbert For bingers who claim that they’re not ready to leave the party yet, central bankers are jiving hard to convince us that they know where the exits are. My bet is that they’ll bail sooner than financial markets think.

Granddad, Investment Banking Is Dirty, Dangerous: Mark Gilbert “Granddad Benny, this investment- banking museum isn’t anywhere near as scary as the gold mine tour we went on last week during our California trip.”

Tiger Woods, Angelina Jolie Shouldn't Set Bonuses: Mark Gilbert The Group of 20 proclamation suggesting remedies for what ails finance is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Its proposed solutions are not only flawed, they are impossible to implement -- especially with regard to the thorny issue of remuneration and bonuses.

Bernanke Bonus Mustn’t Make Hedge-Fund Guys Blush: Mark Gilbert Ben Bernanke’s renomination as Federal Reserve chairman gives him a guaranteed job for four years, precisely the kind of long-term, risk-free tenure that regulators are trying to outlaw elsewhere in finance.

Goldman Toaster Alone Can’t Reheat Global Economy: Mark Gilbert Less than a year ago, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. rebranded itself as a bank holding company, a move it celebrated by giving alumnus and New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine a logo-emblazoned toaster, according to the New Yorker magazine.

Tie Up Speculators, Let Markets Choke: Mark Gilbert (Correct) The Commodity Futures Trading Commission is examining ways to curb price swings in energy markets. Chairman Gary Gensler says the CFTC must “address excessive speculation, not how we can eliminate speculation.”

Keynes Arouses Fed as ECB Looks for Monetary Exit: Mark Gilbert The worst crisis in modern financial history is set to culminate in an ideological clash, pitting the Federal Reserve against the European Central Bank in a debate that will shape the global economy for at least the next decade.

Shotgun Marriages Raise Risk of New Bank Blowups: Mark Gilbert If the aftermath of the credit crunch is a financial landscape featuring fewer banks, each even bigger than before because of government-engineered mergers and opportunistic takeovers of weaker brethren, then we should all be very afraid. That, though, is exactly where we are headed.