4 ms·
This is valid point, but its implications are limited: you're basically saying that if AIG collapsed, it would lead to further collapses (due to "the state of t
by mendriacus 16y ago
This is valid point, but its implications are limited: you're basically saying that if AIG collapsed, it would lead to further collapses (due to "the state of the financial markets at the time") and that could very well lead to GS suffering as well.
This is true, not just for GS, but for almost any other financial firm and bank in the United States. In that sense, we all, including end consumers, enjoyed the benefits of TARP bailouts - assuming that without them and policies related to them, the entire financial system would collapse and drop the US to something like the great depression or worse.
- pak 16y agoThose closest to the bailouts got the most milk in their pails. Maybe the consumers got a dribble, but that doesn't disqualify criticism of those who got a whole bucket, especially if they stole the cow to begin with. GS practically set up AIG to collapse. You might say that's just business, but you have got to be kidding me if you think GS didn't see major ramifications for the economy and predict some kind of governmental assistance. (Normally, if AIG was less entangled with all of the Street and had failed on its own, GS would have have simply lost a bundle on all of its credit default swaps).
- trevelyan 16y agoNo. I'm saying that Goldman received $12 billion from AIG that it wouldn't have received if AIG went under. So wipe that money off Goldman's balance sheets before talking about the health of the business absent TARP, etc. The issue is claiming the company would have done fine without government support and selectively ignoring the fact it had just received a $12 billion dollar bailout in the form of a federal payout of AIG's debt to it.