Comment by samstave | Hacker News Reader

Comment by samstave | Hacker News Reader

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I am going to state my unpopular opinion once again on HN, but so be it:

SCREW GOLDMAN SACHS.

So - with that said, without getting mad at me, look at the long history of shenanigans that GS is responsible.

Lets start first with the Wolf of Wall Street (the movie) -- if you're not familiar, GS helped the PM of Malaysia rob the country of ~4 billion in profits, from which one of the Playboy-money-guys from Malaysia, steal a large portion of that money, through ridiculous parties and fund the movie Wolf of Wall street.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/1mdb_mal...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1Malaysia_Development_Berhad

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Look into the Greek Scandal, the mortgage crisis, their profiteering on the FB BS (known shenanigans in privacy etc)

Look into their raping of the US in the purchase of AIG

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/26/goldman-sachs-aig-...

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So with all that being said, I have ZERO faith in ANY consumer protections, rights, favorability in an Apple CC -- look at their pricing and lack of discounting on their excessive margins.

Their CC will hold an egregious APR % and draconian penalties for people who fail... and thus, Apple will start being a huge reason for credit failures of millennia's over time who end up on the wrong side of credit responsibility.

They are also using MasterCard's payment network.

Given the recent revelation that Google was buying everyone's transaction data from MasterCard, I would want to hear them match Goldman's promise not to sell or share your transaction data.

>Of course, Google has been able to track your location using Google Maps for a long time. Since 2014, it has used that information to provide advertisers with information on how often people visit their stores. But store visits aren’t purchases, so, as Google said in a blog post on its new service for marketers, it has partnered with “third parties” that give them access to 70 percent of all credit and debit card purchases.

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/607938/google-now-tracks-...

>Google and Mastercard Cut a Secret Ad Deal to Track Retail Sales

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-30/google-an...

Goldman is a huge organization, the parts that deal with consumers aren't the parts cutting huge financing deals. Marcus--their online savings bank--is very consumer friendly and pays more interest than almost anyone else (2.25%, certainly more than anyone else with a big name). I'd imagine this offering will be much more like Marcus and have nothing to do with its investment bank activities, but I guess we'll find out.

https://www.marcus.com

Marcus is solid. Moved money over there myself. There isn't much to it, no bells and whistles but it's straight interest at a reasonable rate (compared to the others) which many people are looking for. They have CD options as well. Also note this one is FDIC insured and is a true savings account unlike others which often are SIPC insured money market funds. Bonus the site is really nice because it's not a jumbled mess like most bank sites. It's super simple and shows me all I need to know $ and %.

I personally haven't dealt with their support team so I can't speak on how reliable that is compared to the other big banks.

Agreed with jonknee. Don't dismiss it because of the Goldman Sachs name (if anything, I feel more comfortable having a name like this handling financial matters).

> Their CC will hold an egregious APR % and draconian penalties for people who fail...

"Lower interest rates" "No penalty interest rates"

https://photos.reportinglive.com/p/2019-03-25/f1553535277.jp...

> Variable APRs range from 13.24% to 24.24% based on creditworthiness. Rates as of March 2019.

> Late or missed payments will result in additional interest accumulating toward your balance.

From the footnotes in the apple card announcement page.

24.24% is complete usury!

Is 13% really considered low rates in the US?

Only in the sales brochure.

24% is predatory.

Only if you're poor.

You should stop getting your news from Hollywood movies. Goldman Sachs is the very face of American capitalism. They are no more guilty than any other large financial institution of their age in shady practices. The problem you have is with the exploitative nature of the global capitalist system itself, not the specific actor. Just take a look at the history of Deutsche Bank, HSBC, or Credit Suisse if you think Goldman is by any means special in that regard.

That other people also do bad things does not at all excuse the bad things Goldman Sachs has done.

of course, but what other options are there? i think the point being made is that all banks large enough to provide an “apple-scale” service are pretty damn awful.

who knows? this could be an apple “toe in the water” play to see if it works, and they eventually replace GS/mastercard. you’d have trouble doing an MVP credit card without these big players to start with.

Sounds a bit like Nuremberg defense, don't you think? "The System ordered us to rob people."

You’re missing the point. To think that any business would ever act against it’s own self interest within the bounds of this system is naive at best. We’d all love if that weren’t the case, but discussing fantasy worlds does nobody any good.

Rather than a reactionary emotional response to “bad men are bad”, what alternative do you propose to firms like Goldman? I’m not defending them, it’s simply a law of nature that this behavior exists because we allow it to exist. Capitalism is inherently evil, manipulative, and exploitative, yet no one has figured out anything better so far.

Relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jIw22XXSso

So... you're saying this is why we need to regulate bad actors like GS into the ground? Because it's inconceivable they'd ever police themselves because there are no market incentives that actually reward good actors?

Precisely. But we don’t regulate them into the ground because we like money. And Goldman is really really good at making money. Until the good of humanity is held in higher esteem than private profit, this will always be the case. I’m not holding my breath on that one.

I agree, sadly I don't see the US going in this direction until after the voting system and election funding is fixed to the point where no longer is money > public will.

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