Comments on: How Goldman Sachs protects itself from a hundred-year storm

By: Moopheus

Moopheus — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 17:59:29 +0000

“A brief history of Manhattan skyscrapers: they were first built in Lower Manhattan, at the highest possible points around there…all of them are on or near Broadway, which runs up the highest part of Lower Manhattan,”

It’s also where the most solid bedrock is. Don’t forget that the edges of Manhattan (and most of our coastal cities, for that matter) are mainly landfill. At the time the Woolworth was built, it would have been way too hard to put it on landfill. But, just as in places like Las Vegas and New Orleans, engineers figured out how to support taller buildings in softer ground.

By: ComradeAnon

ComradeAnon — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 14:00:14 +0000

Auros-thanks for the link. I was aware of that but had not read about it in great detail. Unfortunately, I don’t have much confidence that the same problem happening today would involve as much sacrifice.

By: spectre855

spectre855 — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 13:04:40 +0000

Those bags are actually stuffed with hundred dollar bills. It’s Goldman’s new take on the “fortress balance sheet”.

By: Sword61

Sword61 — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 11:47:07 +0000

Plenty of temporary liquidity coming their way. Squids like that!!

By: dsquared

dsquared — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 06:57:56 +0000

sorry, commentus interruptus. Just going to point out that under the “did the trick” old regulations we had the S&L crisis, the LDC debt crisis, the oil patch lending boom, Continental Illinois and two or three commercial real estate crises.

By: dsquared

dsquared — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 06:54:54 +0000

>>dumb regulations like Glass-Steagal and Basel I, which weren’t very sophisticated, but which generally did the trick<< apart from the S&L crisis, the LDC debt crisis, the commercial real estate crisis ...

By: KenG_CA

KenG_CA — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 02:14:40 +0000

Goldman is just doing what they can to be avoid having to be literally bailed out.

By: Auros

Auros — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 22:36:11 +0000

If we’re talking about clever models failing, it’s worth remembering the Citicorp Center story…

http://www.duke.edu/~hpgavin/ce131/citic orp1.htm

Sometimes the incentives of the people designing a complex system are skewed such that a _little_ information gets lost at each step, and eventually you end up with a building, hundreds of feet tall, that has the wrong kind of joints in its critical structural support.

By: static1812

static1812 — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 21:10:37 +0000

Nicely done