AIG Bailout Not Only Bailed Out Goldman, But Goldman's International Bank Client List

A much clearer picture is developing of what went on during the middle of the financial crisis, when AIG was bailed out by the government and Goldman Sachs ended up receiving 100 cents on the dollar from AIG on various instruments.

The clearer picture is the result of Janet Tavakoli's provocative article, Goldman’s Lies of Omission. In the article, she claims that GS CFO David Viniar lied when he said GS's exposure to AIG would be insignificant.

A anonymous Goldman apologist who writes at Economics of Contempt responded to Tavakoli's article, calling the article part of a, "ridiculous conspiracy about Goldman and AIG [that] just won't die."

As you will see by the end of this post, the GS apologist does not only not prove his point, but he sets up the opportunity for an observer to point out that the conspiracy was much grander. The commenter points out that not only was GS bailed out, but so was GS's international bank client list.

The GS apologist essentially says that GS had insurance with AIG that cost $10 billion, but that GS had collateral against that cost of $7.5 billion (and it hedged away the other $2.5 billion in risk by buying CDS insurance against an AIG failure). Thus, the GS apologist says they would have gotten their $10 billion back to buy insurance somewhere else. Of course, at such time the markets would have been in a panic and there is no way GS would have been able to get the same insurance for $10 billion, if at all. As a number of commenters to the post point out, it would be like trying to buy fire insurance for your house while the house is on fire. So this pretty much blows the "Goldman is a saint" anonymous blogger out of the water.

But there is a comment at the Economics of Contempt post that I find fascinating:

GS sold a product to the European commercial banks, that enabled them to meet BASELII reserve requirements. It was, is essence, a piece of US mortgage paper, supported by an AIG insurance policy wrapped with a AAA-rating. At AIG's failure, French banks would have become severely capital constrained. Christine Legarde personally called Paulson to ask that AIG be saved. The reputational risk to GS of near-bankrupting all of Europe's major banks would have been devastating. Read the list of banks who received $ 10s of billions from the FED. Its the GS client list. I'm not sure that anyone else has put this piece of the puzzle together in such a clear fashion:

European banks would have been destroyed by an AIG bankruptcy because of a product sold by Goldman Sachs. The Fed money that went to European banks, through the AIG bailout, was Goldman's international banker client list!

In other words, the AIG bailout that benefited Goldman was much greater than the billions that went directly to Goldman. A large chunk of the rest of the tens of billions went to Goldman's international bank clients. Here's WSJ initial report on who received government AIG bailout money, indeed a huge chunk went to European banks:

A quick call to a friend, who is in a position to know such things ,tells me that, off the top of his head, the international banks do all sound like important GS clients.

So here is the new expanded conspiracy theory: Without a bailout of Goldman international bank clients that were sold the drek by Goldman, Goldman would have lost all international credibility and business. The bailout, on the other hand, has strengthened Goldman's hand internationally. International banks dealing with Goldman know that when push comes to shove Goldman can get them all bailed out.

In other words, the Goldman bailout was even of much greater benefit to Goldman than most have already suspected.

Remember these recently written famous words:

Goldman Sachs is “a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.”

On 10/27/09 it was reported by Bloomberg news[21] that while acting as president of the New York Federal Reserve Tim Geithner arranged for Goldman Sachs, Société Générale, and Deutsche Bank to receive full payment on credit default swaps they had purchased rather than 40 cents on the dollar insurance giant AIG proposed.

A Fed-run entity called Maiden Lane III was used to shunt these CDOs, which cost American tax payers at least $13 billion dollars at the time.

It is currently estimated that due to a decline in value, the total costs for this bank favoritism case cost the American tax payers $35.6 billion total.

To quote Bloomberg: “the deal contributed to the more than $14 billion that over 18 months was handed to Goldman Sachs, whose former chairman, Stephen Friedman, was chairman of the board of directors of the New York Fed when the decision was made!!!”

Ok, but what does that mean?

There would be a real cost to consumer confidence, the world economy and the U.S. Economy if several world banks suddenly failed sinultaneously.
There would be a real drop in the creditability of U.S. financial institutions if AIG failed and if the cause was determined to be Goldman Sachs.
The bailout was structured in terms of equity investments and/or loans. How much of it can we expect to get back?
How much would it have cost us in terms of reduced economic output and/or tax receipts if we had done nothing? I don't think anyone can really quantify that, but there is a real cost of doing nothing.

We weren't informed that some of the bailout money was helping international banks until after the fact. But was it the wrong thing to do?

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.