Wow, this reasonable response is getting downvoted, whereas the parent, which is basically a gibberish string of conspiracy theories is the top comment?

This is a pretty clear example that the comment threads have seriously gone downhill.

I think you are being just a bit over sensitive....

Imagine instead of Goldman the OP would have said "YCombinator", how fast do you think it would have been downvoted ?

You can't have one rule for companies you like and another for companies you don't.

I like many HN'ers am a startup founder, I'd be horrified if someone baselessly accused my company of advocating criminal activities. I don't care if the company being wrongly accused is Goldman, Microsoft, AOL or some tiny startup. Wrong is wrong.

While such behaviour might be tolerated in other online communities, it should have absolutely no-place on HN.

You're just being obtuse. I didn't wrongly accuse Goldman. I rightly pointed out past abuses which Goldman has carried out. Do you not read the news?

And yes. You most certainly can have one rule for companies who are multi-billion-dollar bad actors, and other rules for companies which, well, aren't.

This isn't complex.

Perhaps unfortunate, or inaccurate, but horrifying?

If I keep acting inappropriately, I can't blame anyone but myself for rumors that pass around about other inappropriate behavior. It's life.

Have you heard of the terms "if" and "freedom of speech"?

If you seriously think what I posted is libel, sue me. No, really. I'll be easy to find; just search nearby hospitals for the guy who was admitted because he was unable to stop laughing.

What a joke. Did Goldman pay you to defend them here? If so, your salary needs to be reduced.

I was making a general point about how financial firms in general have miraculously escaped any prosecution or financial consequences for the crisis they caused. I think it was a valid point. In any case, an opinion, voiced in the conditional, is about as far away from "libel" as can be imagined.

For be fair, I think Goldman was named by Bud because of their relation to this story.

> Insider trading is a criminal offence

The update in the article suggests that the trades may have been done prior to any non-public information about Goldman's valuation.

BTW, there is a good discussion about the (il)legality of insider trading for privately held companies over at Quora: http://www.quora.com/Do-insider-trading-laws-apply-to-privat...

Oh c'mon - I think poor old Goldman will survive any obviously tongue-in-cheek claims made on the Hacker News board just fine.