Wreckers of the Economy

It probably should come as no surprise that Goldman Sachs, which made shiploads of money selling the unsecure securities we all know now as "collateralized debt obligations" and, at the same time, bet that their own products were garbage, allegedly had their greedy fingerprints all over the collapse of AIG. Even worse, Goldman got to determine the value of their own claimed losses and then used their muscle to cram those valuations down the throat of AIG.

A.I.G. had long insured complex mortgage securities owned by Goldman and other firms against possible defaults. With the housing crisis deepening, A.I.G., once the world’s biggest insurer, had already paid Goldman $2 billion to cover losses the bank said it might suffer.

A.I.G. executives wanted some of its money back, insisting that Goldman — like a homeowner overestimating the damages in a storm to get a bigger insurance payment — had inflated the potential losses. Goldman countered that it was owed even more, while also resisting consulting with third parties to help estimate a value for the securities.

Goldman managed to collect money from the Feds through third-party banks. Goldman also claimed that their poisonous waste was worth less than anyone else thought they were:

In just the year before the A.I.G. bailout, Goldman collected more than $7 billion from A.I.G. And Goldman received billions more after the rescue. Though other banks also benefited, Goldman received more taxpayer money, $12.9 billion, than any other firm.

In addition, according to two people with knowledge of the positions, a portion of the $11 billion in taxpayer money that went to Société Générale, a French bank that traded with A.I.G., was subsequently transferred to Goldman under a deal the two banks had struck.

Goldman stood to gain from the housing market’s implosion because in late 2006, the firm had begun to make huge trades that would pay off if the mortgage market soured. The further mortgage securities’ prices fell, the greater were Goldman’s profits.

In its dispute with A.I.G., Goldman invariably argued that the securities in dispute were worth less than A.I.G. estimated — and in many cases, less than the prices at which other dealers valued the securities.

The Times' writers charitably used the word "intriguing" describe Goldman's relationship with AIG:

Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the relationship between Goldman and A.I.G. was that without the insurer to provide credit insurance, the investment bank could not have generated some of its enormous profits betting against the mortgage market. And when that market went south, A.I.G. became its biggest casualty — and Goldman became one of the biggest beneficiaries.

I would have used the word "criminal". In sports, someone who bet against their own team would end up in prison. A car company would be hounded into failure if it was learned that it had found a way to make huge amounts of money from recalls.

It is hard to avoid the conclusion that Goldman Sachs knew all along that the securities they made were doomed to fail. If that were true, then Goldman Sachs was instrumental in pumping up the housing bubble and they were the ones who kicked out the shoring and brought the economy crashing down. Millions of people are out of work, millions of people are now effectively chained into their homes that are worth less than the debt, and Goldman Sachs is rolling in the dough.

Goldman Sachs apparently did far, far more damage to our economy and our nation than al Qaeda could ever dream of doing. We have spent hundreds of billions of dollars going after al Qaeda. As far as I know, there are no investigations, no inquiries and no prosecutions targeted at Goldman Sachs. There are no "black site" prisons holding the engineers of the recession. There are no Predator drones with Hellfire missiles orbiting around Greenwich (CT), Westport (CT) or Bedford (NY), trying to catch sight of a Goldman executive. There are no teams of special forces killers trying to find and eliminate those guys.

Things should be different.