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Banking Reform's Goldman Moment

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Goldman Sachs was in the fraud charges seat on Capitol Hill. We look through the grilling at the struggle over Wall Street reform.

Goldman Sachs employees and ex-employees, from left, Daniel Sparks; Joshua Birnbaum; Michael Swenson; and Fabrice Tourre, are sworn in on Capitol Hill, April 27, 2010, prior to testifying before the Senate Investigations subcommittee. (AP)
Goldman Sachs employees and ex-employees, from left, Daniel Sparks; Joshua Birnbaum; Michael Swenson; and Fabrice Tourre, are sworn in on Capitol Hill, April 27, 2010, prior to testifying before the Senate Investigations subcommittee. (AP)

Ten hours of grilling yesterday for Goldman Sachs on Capitol Hill.

The kings of Wall Street and the inquisitors of the U.S. Senate going hour after hour over business practices – fraud, says the S.E.C. – that Senators charged turned U.S. markets into a casino and brought the global economy to its knees.

The backdrop to yesterday's hearing: a Democratic Party push to bring new regulation to Wall Street that Republicans are fighting tooth and nail.

There is damage and anger here. And hot theater, too.

This Hour, On Point: the grilling of Goldman Sachs, and the guts of what’s really going on in the fight over Wall Street.

Guests:

Roger Lowenstein, contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine and former reporter for the Wall Street Journal. His new book is "The End of Wall Street."

Bethany McLean, contributing editor for Vanity Fair and former editor-at-large for Fortune magazine. She is co-author of “The Smartest Guys in the Room,” about Enron, which helped expose the company’s problems. She wrote an op-ed for Tuesday's New York Times: "Meet the Real Villain of the Financial Crisis."

James Hohmann, Congressional reporter for Politico.

This program aired on April 28, 2010.

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