Totally Busted: The Truth About Goldman's Bailout by the Fed

Recently by Robert Wenzel: Five Things You Shouldn’t Mention at a KochanackChristmasParty

Eric Fry has put together the pieces, searched the articles and has done the timeline that show’s how the Fed shoveled money into the coffers of Goldman Sachs. Even to help Goldman pay off its TARP debt.

This investigative report from Eric Fry is must reading. It should also be kept in mind that this is separate from the Goldman/AIG antics that Janet Tavakoli has been reporting on.

Recent disclosures from the Federal Reserve reveal that honesty was one of the earliest casualties of the 2008 financial crisis. These disclosures contain a number of juicy tidbits, like the fact that Goldman Sachs received tens of billions of dollars in direct and indirect succor from the Fed.

Who Rules America? Cha... G. William Domhoff Best Price: $2.55 Buy New $78.78 (as of 09:20 UTC - Details)

Thanks to these spectacularly large taxpayer-funded bailouts, Goldman was able to continue “doing God’s Work” – as CEO Lloyd Blankfein infamously remarked – like the work of producing billion-dollar trading profits without ever suffering a single day of losses.

Thanks to the Fed’s massive, undisclosed assistance, Goldman Sachs managed to project an image of financial well-being, even while accessing tens of billions of dollars of direct assistance from the Federal Reserve.

America’s Secret... Sutton, Antony C. Best Price: $19.57 Buy New $17.44 (as of 08:30 UTC - Details)

By repaying its TARP loan, for example, Goldman wriggled out from under the nettlesome compensation limits imposed by TARP, while also conveying an image of financial strength. But this “strength” was illusory. Goldman repaid the TARP loans with funds it procured days earlier from the Federal Reserve. Then, over the ensuing months, Goldman recapitalized its balance sheet by selling tens of billions of dollars of mortgage-backed securities to the Fed.

And the public never knew anything about these activities until two weeks ago, when the Fed was forced to reveal them….

Secret bailouts do not merely benefit recipients; they also deceive investors into mistaking fantasy for fact. Such deceptions often punish honest investors, like the honest investors who sold short the shares of insolvent financial institutions early in 2009.

Some of these investors had done enough homework to understand that no private-market remedy could ride to the rescue of certain financial firms. Therefore, these investors sold short the shares of certain ailing institutions and waited for nature to take its course. But the course that nature would take would be shockingly unnatural. We now know why. The Federal Reserve altered the course of nature, and did so without telling anyone.

Many of the investors who sold short ailing financial firms in 2009 were alert to the possibility that bailouts by the Federal Reserve could change the calculus. In other words, the Fed could make the bearish case less bearish…at least temporarily. Therefore, many of these investors studied the Federal Reserve’s disclosures, as well as corporate press releases, in order to quantify the Fed’s influence.

Based on all available public disclosures, the story remained fairly grim into the spring of 2009. Accordingly, the short interest – i.e., number of shares sold short – on Goldman Sachs common stock hit a record 16.3 million shares on May 15, 2009 – about 3.3% of the public float. But over the ensuing six months, Goldman’s stock soared more than 30% – producing roughly $500 million in losses for those investors who had sold short its stock. Not surprisingly, the total short interest during that timeframe plummeted to less than 6 million shares, as short-sellers closed out their losing positions.

Was it just bad luck? Or was something more nefarious at work here?

Let the reader decide. But before deciding, let the reader carefully examine the chart below, while also carefully considering a selection of public announcements from Goldman Sachs during this timeframe.

Based upon contemporaneous public disclosures, Goldman Sachs was “forced” by the Federal Reserve to accept a $10 billion loan from the TARP facility in October 2008. But Goldman’s top officers repeatedly – and very publicly – bristled under the compensation limits the TARP loan imposed.

Therefore, as early as February 5, 2009, Goldman’s chief financial officer, David Viniar, remarked, “Operating our business without the government capital would be an easier thing to do. We’d be under less scrutiny…” And on February 11, 2009, CEO Blankfein magnanimously remarked, “We look forward to paying back the government’s investment so that money can be used elsewhere to support our economy.”

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December 17, 2010