goldman sachs

Just how much do people hate Goldman Sachs? Here's a hint: The investment banker announced Thursday that it intends to invest $40 billion in developing clean, renewable energy projects. Critics immediately accused Goldman of cynical media manipulation.

At Goldman Sachs annual shareholders' meeting on Thursday, CEO Lloyd Blankfein mixed it up a bit with a shareholder representative of the Almighty. And it wasn't the first time he's had a little trouble from the brides of Christ.

Not much, and the jokes on you if you think otherwise. As the Facebook IPO makes abundantly clear, ordinary investors need to stop counting on Wall Street to look out for them.

JPMorgan Chase stock lost more than 8% of its value Friday after the bank, the largest in the United States, revealed a monster $2 billion loss in a trading group that manages the risks the bank takes with its own money.

It's widely known that millionaires and billionaires pay taxes at a lower rate than those of us who make much less. But did you know that Americans collectively pay far higher income tax rates than many U.S. companies with billions of dollars in profits?

It's unlikely that random people will just give you the money you need to float you through your ordinary fiscal troubles. But they might make you a loan. Peer-to-peer lending, where borrowers bypass big banks and get loans directly from other individuals, is getting bigger all the time.

In contrast to the many U.S. companies we should view with pride, some have behaved in ways that are downright evil. For their exploitative behaviors, these companies (and one whole industry) have earned their seats on the corporate netherworld's board of shame.

As earnings reports for the first quarter roll in, U.S. companies are beating the estimates of analysts at a rate not seen in more than a decade. Yet stocks have languished. The S&P 500 has fallen about 2% in April. So why aren't investors impressed?

Let's go over some of the items that will help shape the week that lies ahead on Wall Street: smartphones and software, discount brokers and airbeds, and would you like a side of fries with that?

Recent stress tests on America's big banks reveal that the financial crisis is far from over. While the "too big to fails" are in better shape than they were in 2008, there's still "room for improvement at virtually every firm."