After a Wild 2009, a 2010 Hangover for Goldman?

Of all the stories to emerge about the financial service industry's perfidy during the real estate bubble, this one may be the most shocking to date: The New York Times reports that even while it was enthusiastically selling complex mortgage-backed securities to its customers, Goldman ("god's business") Sachs was betting against them by selling short.

One focus of interest, according to the report, "is whether the firms creating the securities purposely helped to select especially risky mortgage-linked assets that would be most likely to crater, setting their clients up to lose billions of dollars if the housing market imploded."

If there's anyone out there who would be surprised that Goldman and others deliberately bilked their customers in this way, I'm sure someone has a very nice bridge to sell you.

The Times story ran on December 23, which might explain why it hasn't gotten more attention. But regulators and lawmakers are going to take an interest--the SEC and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority are investigating--and it's hard to believe that this won't continue to haunt Goldman and others in 2010.