Jim Cramer on Former Firm: "I Can't Defend Goldman Anymore"

In a new post from Jim Cramer on theStreet.com, the Mad Money host says that he can no longer continue to defend Goldman Sachs GS in light of yesterday's New York Times op-ed from Greg Smith torching the firm. "Taking one side of the trade. Favoring one client by picking some bad mortgages vs. another. And these are bad things. Ok. They're just bad things and we are not going to try to equivocate and we are not going to try to come up with rationalizations. They are just not as good. There are ways to make a lot more money," Cramer said. In talking about Goldman's very profitable, but opaque derivatives business (an issue Smith addressed in his NYT op-ed), Cramer added, "They are proprietary products that don't really trade away so let's say you can take 2 points. In other words, you know if it's something you sell at par, it's really worth 98 and the customer is down immediately and the customer doesn't really realize it and they don't really understand it and you can buffalo people and sell them a lot of derivatives and say that interest rates are down a lot." From his comments, it is clear that Cramer is having trouble reconciling the "Vampire Squid" image of Goldman Sachs, which has been advanced as a result of persistent scandals, with that of the firm where he worked as a broker early in his career. He also clearly finds it disturbing that Goldman continues to react to accusations against it with seeming hubris and self-righteousness at every turn. "What I don't like about this version of Goldman is that they are insisting that they never did anything that they shouldn't. And that's unrealistic. Too many clients have lost money. Too many stories have come out. They are not a vast conspiracy," he said.