This is what Joe Stiglitz calls free markets. A loan from the Fed to Goldman Sachs of $15 billion.
Goldman Sachs borrowed $15 billion from the Federal Reserve on Dec. 9, 2008 -- the biggest single loan from a program whose details have been secret until today, reports Bloomberg.
The Fed released data for its so-called single- tranche open-market operations, which lent as much as $20 billion at a time between March 7, 2008, and Dec. 30, 2008, as confidence in credit markets collapsed. The data were released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by Bloomberg News.
Wenzel,
ReplyDeleteThe smoking gun isn't enough for some people, like a friend of mine who now works at GS. Maybe you could layout an intent to kill, or a motive, that's more incriminating than the simple existence of the evidence by itself. As my friend might say in (denial) response to a revelation like this, "They were just going along with it so they didn't get shut down by the regulators for resisting" or, "Well, they borrow normally as part of their business anyway and they were just taking advantage of the lowest rates/best credit terms being offered to them at that point in time, they didn't actually need it to survive."
How do you respond to these kind of knuclehead attempts to deny the obvious?
I published the graphs from which the original story by Bloomberg was based upon here:
ReplyDeletehttp://english.economicpolicyjournal.com/2011/05/revealed-fed-graphs-of-big-banks.html
"We can see Goldman Sachs was borrowing heavily during December, 2008. Wonder if they were among the lucky to secure the 0.01% stop-out interest rate on December 30."
Indeed, they were.
@Taylor: It's too late for your friend. He/she's part of the GS tribe now.
http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2011/01/has-goldman-sachs-become-cult-that-is.html