or at least, good for reading small print on computer monitors, and that's IMPOSSIBLE even for me.
-------------------------------------
Maximum jobs, not maximum profits.

I thought the econ-enlightened  would love it. In any case, just to share a few thoughts around the net on the article :

 Taibbi sorts through the history of Goldman and its “engineering” of this country’s financial bubbles - from the Great Depression to the Tech Bust:

It was as if banks like Goldman were wrapping ribbons around watermelons, tossing them out 50-story windows and opening the phones for bids. In this game you were a winner only if you took your money out before the melon hit the pavement.

From the Housing Crash to the Oil Spike to the Great Bailout to…

Well, I won’t spoil the ending. But Taibbi says Goldman is about to do it again. 

PRI: Marketplace ScratchPad

  Rubin was the prototypical Goldman banker. He was probably born in a $4,000 suit, he had a face that seemed permanently frozen just short of an apology for being so much smarter than you, and he exuded a Spock-like, emotion-neutral exterior; the only human feeling you could imagine him experiencing was a nighmare about being forced to fly coach.

Taibbi makes the case that it’s not just wheat futures which have been overrun by index speculation, but commodities in general and oil in particular. Indeed, Taibbi puts Goldman, Zelig-like, at the center of no fewer than four speculative bubbles: one in the 1920s in which Goldman-controlled entities ended up losing an astonishing $475 billion in today’s dollars; the tech bubble; the housing bubble; and the oil-price bubble ending in 2008. He calls the US “a gangster state, running on gangster economics”, and is very explicit about exactly who he thinks the gangsters are. (Clue: they paid just $14 million in tax on $2 billion in 2008 profits.)

Felix Salmon: Reuters

 I’m starting to run out of room here. But if you’re interested in these issues and learning more about Goldman Sach’s involvement in our Federal Government, I STRONGLY urge you to read Matt Taibbi’s recent expose on the firm in Rolling Stone magazine. Be forewarned, you will be infuriated by what Taibbi reveals. But if it gets people contacting their local representatives and Senators asking why we haven’t launched any investigations into Paulson’s allocation of public funds.
Seeking Alpha: The Fourth Branch of the US Government

 Click on the full screen icon for easier reading - or if you don't like Scribd, the issue of RS just came out.

This article is better than Taibbi's "the Big Takeover"

Ilargi over at Automatic Earth has been harping on Goldman Sachs and their connections from the git go. Some of the diarists at Kos, ditto. Rolling Stone has a larger readership, so maybe more people will pay attention at this point, but unless it's published in People magazine or Oprah has a segment on it, I doubt there will be enough people who care to reach critical mass.
When commodity prices started to hit the ceiling, I suspected too much money was being invested for the spike to be caused by genuine shortages. Some local papers were covering oil tankers sitting off the coast while people were screaming about high gas prices, but due to the received wisdom about Peak Oil, these were ignored.
All the information one could need is out there. It's a matter of overcoming individual prejudice enough to pay attention.

www.insideGoldmanSachs.blogspot.com

inside the head of a conspiracist

Reuters.

Fairly good assessment and I also agree that Taibbi is going "way too out there" on the Dot Con bubble. There were a lot of players in that racket, not just Goldman Sachs.

If the the article was baseless, why did a GS rep even acknowledge it - much less respond to it. In fact, the response tells me the article must have hit a nerve.

What GS is suddenly concerned about good PR? C'mon.

From Felix's blog that you quote

Van Praag told me that in the wake of the events of the past year or two, Goldman’s partners have pretty much lost their appetite for going into public service. Maybe that’s for the best. They are generally smart and talented and knowledgeable people, and I daresay that many of them have done a lot of good after leaving the firm and joining government. At the same time, however, we’re supposed to have a government of the people, not a government of multimillionaire Goldman Sachs technocrats. And when you have the latter, you’re inevitably going to end up with a lot of mistrust and conspiracy theories sooner or later, whether they’re well-founded or not

 emphasis mine