Simon English: Venezuela and the vampire squid - what could go wrong?

It’s about eight years since Rolling Stone’s nuisance correspondent Matt Taibbi produced his epoch-defining description of Goldman Sachs as a “great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money”.

At the time, this felt self-righteously angry and important as well as funny. It put Goldman on the back foot for a while, made it answer or at least ponder questions it would rather not, such as: is there anything you wouldn’t do for a million dollars? (Answer: not really. But we have had a little think.)

I was in a meeting with Goldman chief executive Lloyd Blankfein not so long ago and it was clear this stuff still bothered him. It was the one subject on which his avuncular glow deserted him. What was wrong with this Taibbi guy, he wanted to know. Was he unstable?

Goldman had a brief go at claiming the vampire squid description for itself, insisting these were peaceful animals that meant humans no harm. The squid stuff has come to seem merely amusing and we’re back to thinking getting angry at Goldman is like getting angry at the moon.

Of course it is going to seize any opportunity to make money for itself. That is just what it does and we must accept that, unlike the rest of us, Goldman never has to ask itself whether it is doing the right thing. If it can profit, that IS the right thing.

Hence to Venezuela, from where we bring the following news: the squid is back. Goldman has just bought $2.8 billion of government bonds at a discounted rate, handing a financial lifeline to embattled president Nicolas Maduro, on whose watch an already troubled country has become desperate. One stat: 75% of Venezuelans have lost at least 19 pounds due to food shortages.

Perhaps Goldman is signalling dietary advice here; making the world thinner one bond deal at a time. Opposition politicians say Goldman is propping up a dictatorship. Its response is that since it bought the bonds through a middleman — it won’t say whom — it didn’t deal with the government, and isn’t in business with Maduro, a socialist ruling by decree.

The bank says: “We recognise that the situation is complex and evolving and that Venezuela is in crisis. We agree that life there has to get better, and we made the investment in part because we believe it will.”

So this is an optimistic bet on the future, right, a deal born on the wings of hope.

There’s not much point competing with Taibbi, so I’ll leave you with his thoughts on the Goldman-Venezuela tie-up: “Who says two amoral institutions with diametrically opposing ideologies can’t collaborate to sink even lower together?”