You may not think a half-a-billion dollars is a lot, but the fact that you were able to get through 2007, when the bubble burst, was because you went with the big short.

Your clients' interests always come first, and they don't.

Everything is local.

That was a strategic positioning for the firm, is that correct?

You don't acknowledge it is big time. You said it was, what, a small net short.

Well, all year, they were over your permanent limit. They were hugely over it.

We are going to stand adjourned for 10 minutes because we have a vote on.

So you guys made $3.7 billion that year.

And that party with the reverse inquiry is somebody who wants to sell short. Is that correct?

You did not disclose to ACA that Paulson was on the short side of this deal. Is that correct?

I think in those transactions in which we underwrote, I believe, and I am not looking at specific--in fact, my understanding is that is disclosed, that we can have a short or a long position in those securities.

That was the profit they made.

Mr. Sparks, turn to Exhibit 173. This is an email message, November 2006...

one of the responsibilities of an investment bank is to go out and sell deals.

The evidence shows that Goldman repeatedly put its own interests and profits ahead of the interests of its clients.

Did that trouble you?

What is your reaction now that you read that, that something that would have been done otherwise could not be done because the writer, a Standard and Poor's employee, had to 'massage the subprime and Alt-A numbers to preserve market share?'

Part of that culture.

Short-term thinking.

I am just asking a simple, straightforward question.

From my personal perspective, it is something that I would have wanted to know, because it is more of a qualitative not a quantitative assessment if someone who intends the deal to blow up is picking the portfolio.

And would you believe it should be considered differently?

Take a look at Exhibit 1i.

I think you have a long way to go in acknowledging what happened to your agencies.

If you would have done them a year earlier when you had information that the market was going under and was in trouble...