Low interest rates have been good for Goldman Sachs.

Peter Eavis, for the Wall Street Journal recently noted this:

All banks benefit from the Federal Reserve’s zero-interest-rate policy, but Goldman Sachs Group appears to be benefiting more than most. [Bank News Now editors note: does that surprise anyone?]

The Wall Street firm’s filing on Wednesday contained an eye-popping number: The interest rate on its long-term borrowing was a minuscule 0.92% in the third quarter, down from 3.53% in the third quarter of 2008…

So, what does this mean?  As the everyday consumers like you and me is squeezed out of credit — or when we do get it we pay dearly for it because we missed a single payment in 2005 — companies like Goldman Sachs pay 0.92% to borrow money for the long-term.

Furthermore, Goldman Sachs is in an opportunity to grow and grow and then grow some more and provided they make good bets, they can grow practically for free.  They can just borrow whatever they want for whatever acquisitions they want and are able to pay next to nothing for it.

Think about that the next time you get your credit card statement and pay a 22% APR.

Citigroup, under pressure since accepting bailout funds, has found a new way to keep and reward “talent.”

This week it began to issue several million stock options to a quarter of its workforce in a way that they may become extremely lucrative for the employees lucky enough to receive them.

This partly to compensate for the evaporation of the Citi stock share price, which has gone from a high of $56 a few years ago down to $4 a share.

Whats the grand plan? Citi will be issuing one stock option at just above the current price for each unvested share that employees had accumulated.  When (and unless they fail, I don’t really think it is an “if”) the share price climbs, Citigroup employees could see a sharp rise in their 2009 compensation.

The good news is this is that it excludes the top 100 earners at Citi — meaning most of those in the executive suites.

It’s a shame that their shareholders that lost a ton of money due to their reckless actions cannot get the same sweet deal.

Source: To Retain Its Bankers, Citi Offers Option Plan

The official numbers say that unemployment is at 10.2%.

The real unemployment rate is really 17.5%.

Those are very different numbers but unemployment has always been measured in a way that makes it look lower than it actually is.

What does 17% mean?  It means that one out of every six workers in the United States is unemployed.  It is such a high number that it is only the second time it has crept past 18% — the other time was in December, 1982 when it was 17.1%.  In 1982, the “reported” unemployment rate was 10.8% and we seem to be rushing towards (or past) that number again.

How bad is it?  16 million people are now unemployed and more than seven million jobs have been lost since late 2007.

How close are we to the Great Depression in regards to unemployment?  Even though no official records are available, the NY Times sat down and figured out that the real unemployment during the Great Depression was 30%.  That means that the current unemployment rate is roughly 2/3 as bad as during the Great Depression.

They say that the “Great Recession” is over and that unemployment always lags.  I sure hope so — my mother was forced onto social security and into early retirement because she couldn’t find an entry back into the workforce and my stepfather was just forced into early retirement by his employer, the government.

According to the Huffington Post, banks that were quick to line up for the government bailouts have been busy spending a portion of the bailout funds on lobbying Congress.

Twenty-five top recipients of government bailout funds spent more than $71 million on lobbying the federal government in the year since they were rescued, an extensive review of lobbying records by the Huffington Post reveals.

A year after taxpayers forked over $700 billion to help rescue the biggest names in banking, insurance and automotive industry, those same institutions are using portions of the cash to influence legislation with a direct impact on taxpayers.

This is absolutely disgusting.  It seems like the have no representation in Washington anymore and the only way to get attention is to have lobbyists.  Now that we’ve saved these institutions from the brink of destruction, they’ve turned around and are using that money to get laws passed that are more favorable to them.

Does anyone think that these institutions want laws that restrict their activities?  Of course not!  They are using the taxpayer money received from the bailouts to pass laws that will enable them to create another bubble.