The author, Matt Taibbi, makes a strong case for why Goldman Sachs is partially, if not wholly, to blame for the Great Depression, the .com bubble, the subprime crisis, and last year's oil price spikes, through questionable practices such as laddering. He suggests that Goldman is poised to create a new bubble out of the nascent cap-and-trade markets.

After listing some of the dozens of ex-Goldmanites who now hold powerful positions in Washington and in finance, Taibbi notes, "If America is circling the drain, Goldman Sachs has found a way to be that drain — an extremely unfortunate loophole in the system of Western democratic capitalism, which never foresaw that in a society governed passively by free markets and free elections, organized greed always defeats disorganized democracy."

It will be interesting to see if anyone in Washington reads and responds to this piece.