How about this - a synthetic CDO that allowed one to go long or short the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations hearings today into Goldman Sachs and its role in the subprime mortgage meltdown. Something tells me there would be more people looking for the short position than the long position.
This subcommittee has spent 18 months looking into Goldman and its mortgage operations. A good six hours into the hearings, and in this blogger’s view, there have been no smoking guns. In fact, if anything, you come away with the feeling that these senators don’t understand what they are looking into.
For example, Chairman Carl Levin repeatedly asks the executives of Goldman if the firm had a significant short position. And they keep saying, yes we did, to offset a long position (something called hedging, Mr. Levin). And Levin replies that’s not what he asked (the long position answer).
