 Paulson is reported to have earned a total of £280m after reducing its short position in RBS in January 2009.To help protect their bets, PCI and others successfully prevented attempts to limit foreclosures and rework mortgage loans.Paulson has been criticized in the ABACUS investment for paying Goldman $15 million to put together what was a collection of "toxic" subprime securities with his help (creating "the concept" of the "ethically challenged 'synthetic' securities") to be sold by Goldman to long investors so that Paulson could bet against it, a process critics complained was "sleazy", or the work of those lacking a "moral compass", though not illegal.