Goldman Sachs Could Play Huge Role in Geithner's Plan
Earlier in the hearing, Tim Geithner suggested that Goldman Sachs could be one of five institutions helping to manage the public-private partnership program to buy up a bunch of toxic legacy assets from ailing banks.
Goldman has played a central role in this drama. As an institution, it's been extremely close to the Treasury department. And, as Josh noted, it's also about to pay off all of its TARP money (with the help, perhaps, of the other government money it received as an AIG counterparty) which will free it up to return to a status quo of paying enormous bonuses.
It's also, of course, one of the institutions that helped bring the financial system to its knees--it holds many of the toxic assets in question and may be well placed to bid them up and inflate their prices at auction. (How you manage the fund to rescue financial institutions with toxic assets while you yourself hold those same assets has yet to be sussed out by committee members.)
Anyhow, in the event that you're feeling left out and want a piece of the Goldman pie for yourself, you can apply with the government to be a private asset manager here.
Josh
Matt
Eric
Brian
Gee, what a surprise.
March 24, 2009 12:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
No conflict there...
March 24, 2009 12:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Every day Goldman Sachs looks more like the Halliburton of the financial world.
March 24, 2009 12:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Other than the fact that Halliburton never needed a "bailout."
March 24, 2009 12:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dude, the Iraq war WAS Haliburton's bail out. Easy money for throwing up defective buildings and roads.
March 24, 2009 12:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah...cuz that's all they did...
March 24, 2009 1:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
At least you admitted it.
March 24, 2009 1:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Here's an actual list if you're interested...
http://www.halliburton.com/news/default.aspx?navid=843&pageid=2070
March 24, 2009 1:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry. Not interested in self-serving press releases. Next thing you know, you'll be citing Dick Cheney's recent comments as proof that Cheney was a great veep.
LOL!
March 24, 2009 1:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's the best you can manage? Pretty sad. Whatever.
March 24, 2009 4:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
So you're standing up for Cheney's veep tenure now?
You go, LaBonehead!
March 24, 2009 5:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think my credit union on the corner should be one of the five.
March 24, 2009 12:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
By the way, the BoA (formerly Merrill) analyst who trashed the plan yesterday has ALREADY been forced to "leave to pursue other interests"! That should tell you how well Wall Street really thinks this plan would hold up on close inspection- were that allowed.
March 24, 2009 12:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bank of American was NEVER Merrill Lynch, genius. Try getting the basics right and maybe somebody will listen to you. But first, you have to take your head out of Krugman's ass and stop ranting like a PCP junkie.
Too bad you can't do either.
March 24, 2009 1:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
The ANALYST was formerly with Merrill before it was bought by BoA, clown. Still on the 5th-grade level I see. Why do you bother exposing your stupidity to the world?
March 24, 2009 3:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wait. You think "the world" reads these blog postings????
Question: why do you spend so much time explaining and responding to some stupid 5th grader?
Answer: Because you're a stupid 5th grader! LOL.
March 24, 2009 4:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Shorter BoA analyst: "This plan doesn't solve the real problem, which is that we need more takeovers."
I'm doing a Sadly No! style 'shorter' with it, but that's close to an actual quote. BoA would rather have smaller good banks forced to merge with them. The last thing they want is their assets marked at prices in anything like the same galaxy as honest.
March 24, 2009 2:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Goldman Sachs should be the first company nationalized!
March 24, 2009 1:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is a bunch of crap. Goldman has effectively managed its business and while they benefited from AIG not defaulting on its obligations so did a lot of other institutions. While Goldman might have been wounded by an AIG default most of the other counterparties would have been devastated. This Goldman conspiracy is stupid. They are the best and most successful investment banker. This doesn't make them crooks. Go find a communist conspiracy to rail about.
March 24, 2009 3:12 PM | Reply | Permalink