I think your suggesting (as far as I can tell) is that GS forced the government to give out money (through their political connections). This is very much the

I think your suggesting (as far as I can tell) is that GS forced the government to give out money (through their political connections). This is very much the case. To open an account at Goldman Sachs, you must invest at least $10 million. Averages Joes are not investing with Goldman Sachs. If they wanted to stabilize the market, the government could have chosen to invest it in banks that did not overextend themselves, or to directly purchase toxic assets instead of doing it through a middleman: letting GS skim a profit. Instead, they predictably saved the assets of the super rich instead of mainstreet America.