Matt Taibbi has written a scathing piece in Rolling Stone magazine about how Goldman Sachs (GS) is the "Great American Bubble Machine."  He basically makes yet another case that Goldman Sachs makes money by controlling America's politicians and regulators.  He is not the first to make this case.

For example in 2006, Kyle Pope, a former writer and editor of The Wall Street Journal wrote a story in The Los Angeles Times entitled, “Goldman Sachs Rules The World,” where he explained that former President Bush’s team of economic experts were mostly just a team of former Goldman Sachs executives.

In October 2008, Julie Creswell and Ben White of The New York Times did a piece called "Government Sachs," accusing Goldman Sachs of purposefully infiltrating the American government for profit.  Articles like these swelled during and after the financial crash in late 2008.

More recently, Glenn Greenwald of Salon wrote an article entitled, “Larry Summers, Tim Geithner and Wall Street’s Ownership of Government,” where he revealed from White House financial disclosure forms that Goldman Sachs paid Larry Summers $135,000 to speak to them one year ago, allegedly in order to position him and themselves as lead economists in government.

There is a long list of articles about Goldman Sachs and their influence on economic policy.  Many of these articles go as far as suggesting a conspiracy.

Do these articles hurt Goldman Sachs, however?  It doesn't seem like it.  Goldman Sachs stock is easily outperforming most banks in the last three, six and twelve month periods.  Accusing them of ruling the world may actually be helping them accomplish just that, as investors look to park their cash in the most powerful and stable financial institutions.  Speaking of which, one might wonder where are the articles lambasting JP Morgan Chase, a company with a history of benefiting from economic turmoil.  They even set themselves up to do the same this time around by taking over Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual (WAHUQ.PK) for next to nothing while investors cried foul.  JP Morgan Chase sports a market cap of over 120 billion today while Goldman Sachs is at 71 billion.

In any case, writers beware: investors looking to profit will only be encouraged to support Goldman Sachs after reading this latest article.  After all, most of the people interested in reading these articles are investors themselves.  By going after a single company rather than focusing on the general lack of effective regulations over these companies, the articles are taking shortcuts in identifying problems and, in turn, merely enhancing the reputations of powerful companies.