Goldman Sachs’ bailout bonanza – MarketWatch
By David Weidner, MarketWatch April 7, 2009NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Lloyd Blankfein must be the luckiest guy on Wall Street. He leads one of the Street’s biggest bailed-out firms, but unlike other companies propped up by taxpayers, Blankfein’s Goldman Sachs Group Inc. , Goldman hasn’t had to forfeit an ownership stake in its firm, and its shareholders — many of them management and employees — have benefited.
…Goldman has taken more than $20 billion in taxpayer cash through loans, payments and backstops. Goldman’s latest bailout coup was a $12.5 billion paid out of AIG’s $180 billion government cash infusion.
…But the AIG-Goldman affair is just the beginning, under the policy enacted by former U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Goldman’s chief executive until 2006. Major competitors have failed or been diminished. Goldman already seems, if not just poised, to be dominating what’s left of the investment banking landscape.
…Goldman Sachs has the most powerful investment banking franchise and the most successful trading operation on Wall Street,” Brad Hintz of Bernstein Research wrote Friday, adding that he’s been told “new leverage limits are not expected to impact Goldman’s trading performance.”
…In the last year, Goldman has benefited from Paulson’s selective bailouts, a fortuitously timed ban on short selling, a liberal interpretation of bank holding company rules and soon, an easily gamed auction of distressed securities run by the government.
A conspiracy theorist might think this run of fortune has something to do with the former Goldman executives having influential roles in the Treasury Department.
read full story here… Goldman Sachs’ bailout bonanza – MarketWatch.
Unbelievable stuff… right in front of the world’s brightest minds… Grand Theft in Broad Daylight … NOT Once but again and again and even NOW as we ponder this! Anyone REALLY think Obama is in this for YOU? If you do you are needing to get some help! (really) Who has he given money to and who are his cabinet and advisers?
It’s THE BIG BANKERS running this country… The CEO’s and POTUS and US Senator’s are just PUPPETS…
Can’t Believe it is happening here? In denial that what is going on for the centuries of mankind is not so kind? Did you think 911 could happen before it did?
WAKE UP… Fight with Civil Disobedience… Hold these “men” accountable for destroying families and nations… joe
