[I'm leaving this sticky because a synonym for "economic rent" would be really nice to have and propagate. -- lambert]

Go read Numerian for a lucid explation of how GS is making its money. I'll wait.

Now, I want to pull out two paragraphs:

We’ve seen this year the scandal over High Frequency Trading, where Goldman and other firms have computers positioned at the New York Stock Exchange getting information on trades a millisecond before they are posted publicly. Goldman sees where the market is going second by second, positions itself for very short term profits, and in effect extracts a tax on trading by individual investors and mutual funds.

This tax is, exactly, a "rent," a concept which -- lambert blushes modestly -- we were hammering on rather early on, and which our tribunes of the people on the A list still haven't latched on to.

The second paragraph:

Bloomberg

Oct. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Ashoka Mody, an assistant director of the International Monetary Fund’s European department, was in critical condition today after he was shot in the garage of his Bethesda, Maryland home last night, police said.

Mody, an economist originally from India, has worked at the IMF for eight years and is mission chief to Germany and Ireland, spokeswoman Jennifer Ann Beckman said in an interview.

NYT:

Senior staff members of the United Nations nuclear agency have concluded in a confidential analysis that Iran has acquired “sufficient information to be able to design and produce a workable” atom bomb.

The report by experts in the International Atomic Energy Agency stresses in its introduction that its conclusions are tentative and subject to further confirmation of the evidence, which it says came from intelligence agencies and its own investigations.

But the report’s conclusions, described by senior European officials, go well beyond the public positions taken by several governments, including the United States.