It hasn't attracted much press attention amid the brouhaha over the SEC complaint and the Rajaratnam alleged insider trading, but Goldman Sachs announced last month that it is going to bring H. Lee Scott Jr., who was CEO of Walmart from 2000 to 2009, onto its board of directors.

"Beware the Goodists," writes Jonathan Rosenblum in the Jerusalem Post:

Psychologists Nina Mazar and Chen-Bo Zhong of the Toronto University recently reported a startling discovery in the journal Psychological Science: Those who purchased a "morally virtuous" product, like organic baby food, were less likely to be charitable and more likely to lie and steal than those who purchased conventional products.

The Guardian summarized the findings: "[T]hose . . . who bought green products appeared less willing to share with others a set amount of money than those who bought conventional products. When the green consumers were given the chance to boost their money by cheating on a computer game and then given the opportunity to lie about it – in other words, steal – they did, while the conventional consumers did not."

It's a staple of the left-wing commentariat that companies, such as Caterpillar or ATT, that are taking charges against earnings because of ObamaCare are just doing so to make some right wing political attack on President Obama. So it was interesting to read, in a New York Times news article on the New York Times Company's own earnings, that "In the first quarter, the company also took a one-time charge of $10.9 million, or 7 cents a share, to reflect a change in the health care reform package regarding the tax treatment of benefits."

A Times editorial on the point had declared the provision "inequitable" and that "amounts to double-dipping," without noting that the Times Company itself was benefiting from this supposedly inequitable double-dipping.

Warren Buffett, who has a $5 billion investment in Goldman Sachs, has finally emitted a public reaction to the SEC complaint against Goldman Sachs, according to a report by Bloomberg News. But Mr. Buffett, who appears on CNBC almost as much as some of its paid professional anchors, this time left it to a Berkshire Hathaway director to relay the news to Bloomberg second-hand. It'd be good for Goldman to have someone with Mr. Buffett's common-man reputation out there defending it, but Mr. Buffett doesn't seem to be think it'd be good for him. Otherwise he'd be out there doing it in person rather than leaving it to a member of his board of directors.

Senior Securities and Exchange Commission staffers "spent hours surfing pornographic websites on government-issued computers while they were supposed to be policing the nation's financial system," reports the Associated Press. Some of the government employees involved earned salaries of "up to $222,418."

The AP headline is "GOP ramps up attacks on SEC over porn surfing," as if this is some sort of partisan issue. These are the guys that President Obama wants to give discretionary authority to on rewriting corporate governance rules on shareholder proxies?

"Economic experts at the Health and Human Services Department," looking at ObamaCare, "found that the law falls short of the president's twin goal of controlling runaway costs, raising projected spending by about 1 percent over 10 years. That increase could get bigger, since Medicare cuts in the law may be unrealistic and unsustainable," reports the Associated Press. The AP calls this "the first comprehensive look by neutral experts" at ObamaCare. It's funny how, to AP, the government's own economists are "neutral."

President Obama said yesterday, "I believe in the power of the free market." Rush's brother, the columnist David Limbaugh, muses on why the president feels compelled to keep insisting this. It seems that there are those out there who doubt it is true.

"We seem incapable of grasping that sometimes -- and only sometimes -- the solution to capitalism's problems is more capitalism," writes Jonah Goldberg.

When the Wall Street Journal op-ed page published a piece by the CEO of General Motors, Ed Whitacre, under the headline, "The GM Bailout: Paid Back in Full," we called it "misleading," and "nonsense." Now the Journal itself is essentially admitting as much, taking the unusual step of publishing a follow-up op-ed piece by Paul Ingrassia that calls Mr. Whitacre's claim "not the whole truth" and noting that the loan repayment trumpeted by Mr. Whitacre represents only about 10% of the money it got from the governments of America and Canada. About $52 billion hasn't been repaid, the "Paid Back in Full" headline notwithstanding.

President Obama's big speech on financial reform, delivered today at Cooper Union in Manhattan -- the full text is here -- is worth a careful look.

From the transcript:

"It's also good to be back in Lower Manhattan, a few blocks from Wall Street. (Laughter.)"

Not even Mr. Obama's handpicked audience thinks the president professed like to be near Wall Street is anything other than a laugh line.

"I believe in the power of the free market. I believe in a strong financial sector that helps people to raise capital and get loans and invest their savings. That's part of what has made America what it is."

Good stuff. But how did we know the next word was going to be: "But."

"I'm here because I believe that these reforms are, in the end, not only in the best interest of our country, but in the best interest of the financial sector. "

Mr. Obama thinks, and says, that he knows better than the financial sector and its lobbyists what is in the best interest of the financial sector. Amazing.