Naked Capitalism Link of the Day

Today's link: The Times' Andrew Ross Sorkin Gives Goldman a Rubdown, at Rolling Stone:

First of all, I have asked Goldman about the “Big Short” multiple times, as have other reporters,  and this is the first I’m hearing about $5 billion in long bets in "other parts of the company." I believe in that magical $5 billion about as much as I believe in the mythical private-sector hedges against AIG Goldman claimed to have. You might remember those – they were the reason Goldman claimed it didn’t actually need the $12.9 billion in public money it got through the AIG bailout, because it would have been paid off by private hedges anyway had the government not bailed out AIG. Goldman took the $12.9 billion of the public’s money anyway, however, but not because it needed it – no, sir!
When Lloyd coughed up that bit about the AIG hedges in testimony before Levin last year, there wasn’t a person in Washington who didn’t know it was bullshit. I have a similar feeling about these new numbers Goldman is offering, as do most of the sources of mine who saw the Sorkin piece today. “WTF seriously?” wrote one lawyer friend of mine. “Did Lloyd send ARS a letter from his Mom verifying the data?”
But hey, let’s be generous, and say that it’s all true. Does it mean jack shit? Does it have anything to do with anything?
Absolutely not. How much money Goldman did or did not make shorting mortgages in 2007 dulls not one iota the main charges in the report, which are that Goldman management saw that it was overexposed to mortgages in late 2006 and decided to get out from under them by dumping them on unsuspecting clients, then lying to those same clients about that, and then finally betting against them.

Goldman made a fortune at the expense of everyone else, and when their bets with AIG weren't going to get paid because AIG was insolvent, the U.S. government stepped in and gave Goldman 100 cents on the dollar for those bets.  Excuse me, the taxpayers that Goldman had already screwed gave them 100 cents on the dollar.  It's a pretty good gig if you can get it.  But having your former CEO as Treasury Secretary helps.  Then again, I don't think Geithner ever worked at Goldman, but it sure seems like he did, or he wants to.