“WE SOLD A PRODUCT CALLED ‘OXYGEN-1′ … THAT ACTUALLY HAD NO OXYGEN.”

“WE’VE SOLD OUR CLIENTS A LOT OF SHIT OVER THE YEARS, BUT TO SEE THE GOP BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF US IN HEARINGS, AND THEN BET AGAINST FINANCIAL REFORM ON THE SENATE FLOOR … WELL, THAT’S  NOT SYNTHETIC, BUT PURE UNADULTERATED BULLSHIT.”

“WHEN IT COMES TO CREATING CDOs — COLLATERALIZED DOODY OBLIGATIONS — WE’VE REALLY GOT AWESOME POWERS.”

“WE KNOW THAT AFTER WALL STREET USES THE BAILOUT MONEY FOR DRUGS, THEY’LL JUST CUT IT INTO LITTLE PIECES AND SNORT-SELL IT TO YOUR GRANDMOTHER.”

Mr. McGuire: I just want to say one word to you – actually, it’s four words.
Ben: Yes sir.
Mr. McGuire: Are you listening?
Ben: Yes I am.
Mr. McGuire: ‘Synthetic Collateralized Debt Obligations.’
Ben: Exactly how do you mean?
Mr. McGuire: There’s a great future in Synthetic CDOs. Think about it. Will you think about it?
Ben: Yes I will –but wouldn’t ‘plastics’ actually be less toxic than Synthetic CDOs?
Mr. McGuire: Shh! Enough said. That’s a deal.

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More on Goldman Sachs with Michael Winship at BuzzFlash: What Hath Fraud Wrought?, and  Gather.com with  Ten Things You Didn’t Know About the Goldman Sachs Fraud Case.

“WE SIMPLY TOLD OUR INVESTORS THAT ABACUSES WOULD NEVER GO BUST, SINCE THEY WOULD BEST TRACK THE SLIDE THE REST OF OUR INVESTMENT PRODUCTS CAUSED THE ECONOMY.”

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Lisa Casey on the real Gold Standard for a Sack of Shit.

No, you Seinfeld fanatics — not that kind of  “contest!” I’m talking about the highly prestigious, dynamite, Nobel-like 1st Place prize in this year’s  HumorFeed contest for Best Satire of the Year. My winning entry: A Real War On Christmas: Outrage Grows Over Excessive Bonuses To Santa’s Elves.

My great thanks to the entire HumorFeed community, particularly E.F. Watley, who runs this august humor site, the judges and fellow contributors that made this possible, and all my loyal supporters and readers.

In addition to being Jewish, I guess I’m now really blackballed from Santa’s list.

In perhaps the ultimate sign that the burst of the real estate bubble has reached “historic” proportions, Tishman Speyer Properties and BlackRock Realty, the financially troubled owners of New York’s legendary Stuyvesant Town, said today that they’re turning the  massive apartment complex  back to the Indians, who originally sold it to the Dutch almost 400 years ago.

A major part of the problem was that the New York courts had refused to overturn the rent regulations that had been in effect since the 17th Century, which allowed occupants of three-bedroom duplexes with East River views to pay a monthly rent of only $24 in trinkets.

In addition, BlackRock’s plans to convert these rent-regulated apartments into luxury condos hit an even bigger rock, given the current plight of  middle-class families unable to afford even the  meal of corn enjoyed by the original tenants –  even during the Great Recession of  1659, which had been brought on by the collapse of toxic stockpiles of  “corn derivatives.”

The new owners indicated that the rental properties might now be turned into a giant gambling casino, which would be financed not by a traditional mortgage, but by securitized slot machines, backed by collateralized fruit.

On CNBC, Jim Cramer commented that he was “sitting bullish” about the deal, and that in addition to the gaming industry, he was optimistic that this deal would even be able to resuscitate “Running Bear Stearns.”

In a sign of the substantial divide between Main Street and North Pole Street, a growing chorus of criticism is being directed at the over-sized bonuses doled out this year to the under-sized elves of Santa’s workshop.

While the most trying economic times since The Great Depression have created massive unemployment, a wave of home foreclosures, and forced millions of Americans to defer retirement, the images of these “fat-reindeer” elves piloting Mercedes Benz sleighs and downing thousand dollar bottles of vintage eggnog have created a backlash of epic proportions.

Indeed, there are numerous reports of carolers foregoing such traditional classics as Silent Night in favor of iconic protest songs, such as John Fogerty’s Fortunate Elf, and Edwin Starr’s Christmas, What is it Good For.

As one angry protestor put it, “these elves always wear the same clothes, and already enjoy subsidized housing from Santa, so why the hell do they need seven-figure bonuses?”

The criticism essentially stems from the unprecedented losses caused by the risky ventures undertaken by Santa and his elves the past few years, where the production and delivery of toys took a back seat to more complex products such as credit toy default swaps, sub-prime Tickle-Me-Elmos, and Dora the Explorer derivatives.

But perhaps the asset that was even more toxic than Chinese toys were highly-leveraged legos, which began to fall like dominoes once the financial crisis hit.

Stoking populist anger even more were the federal bailouts that followed, which were predicated on the belief that Christmas was too big to fail.  Moreover, according to a high-placed source at the North Pole, who was not authorized to speak on behalf of Kris Kringle, neither the President nor his Treasury Secretary wanted to be the one to tell Virginia, a key swing state, “that there is no Santa Clause.”

In response to the widespread outcry, Santa and his elves were summoned to appear before numerous Congressional committees, where they arrived via Amtrak, rather than their executive sleigh, to avoid further damage to their public image.

While snacking on milk and cookies, Santa read a statement claiming that these hefty bonuses were “necessary to prevent the defection of my elves to Wall Street, where they’re being heavily recruited to work in their true field of expertise — micro-cap stocks.”

Nevertheless, in an attempt to quell the public outrage, St. Nick promised that future elf compensation packages would entail less cash, and be more heavily weighted toward Christmas Stocking options.

[Note from Editor's Jewish Mother: 'Alright, so he's not a Doctor, but at least this post won a contest!]

“MR. PRESIDENT, WE’LL SUPPORT YOUR PLAN FOR A PUBLIC OPTION, AS LONG AS WE CAN SECURITIZE IT, DERIVATIVIZE  IT, AND TRADE IT AS OPTIONS … AND THEN SELL WHAT’S LEFT AS ‘SUB-PRIME HEALTH INSURANCE’ TO THE SAME POOR SHMUCKS WHO BOUGHT OUR WORTHLESS MORTGAGES.”

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BLOGWORTHIES:

Lisa Casey on The Great White Dopes, and BuzzFlash’s P.M. Carpenter on the Great GOP Freak Show.

Juan Cole on the latest chaos in Afghanistan.