Has Goldman Sachs Gone Back to the Good Old Days?

Even Wall Street was stunned this week when Goldman Sachs announced record quarterly profits, just one month after it repaid $10 billion in taxpayer bailout money. The bank's second-quarter net income was $3.4 billion, more than it earned in all of last year, with the prospect of bonuses that could exceed what executives were paid during the boom before the recession. Today, JP Morgan also announced big earnings, but Goldman Sachs remains in a class by itself. With former executives pulling strings in both the Bush and Obama Administrations, it's the most influential bank in America. We ask critical journalists and others about Goldman's success with other people's money in the midst of continuing recession.