The second-quarter earnings results for Goldman Sachs were supposed to be enormous, but this is beyond enormous: a $3.44 billion profit in the past three months alone.

The New York investment bank's trading arm nearly doubled its revenues in the quarter. Profits were way beyond the bullish expectations of analysts. So soon after receiving government bailout funding, Goldman is raking in megabucks.

How to explain it? Conspiracy theories abound, but here's one indisputable reason: Competition is down, and most other competing banks and funds that survived the past year have nothing like Goldman's $254 billion in capital to work with.

Plus, the markets cooperated almost across the board: The firm that Main Street loves to hate made money in credit products, interest rates, currencies, equities and commodities. Commercial mortgage loans produced a $700 million loss, but obviously that was offset many times over by the success trading other financial products. Just call it "favorable market opportunities" -- that's what the bank is calling it as it lives up to its nickname of "Goldmine" Sachs.