Goldman amasses $164bn "war" chest

nutmeg · Apr 15, 2009

I'm going to root for Goldman Sachs. They make fools out of our elected officials and worse yet Congress makes fools out of us when the average Joe protests the bailout funds, Congress does it anyways.

No one in private industry is going to be held accountable for the melt down and no one in gov't is going to be held accountable and by this I mean prosecuted. There is a shift of money back and forth between gov't and Wall Street like a two handed game of poker and each side has five aces.

If you back GS you might get a return on your money. If you back the gov't someone else will get a return on your money.

krazykarl · Apr 15, 2009

Quote from nutmeg:

I'm going to root for Goldman Sachs. They make fools out of our elected officials and worse yet Congress makes fools out of us when the average Joe protests the bailout funds, Congress does it anyways.

No one in private industry is going to be held accountable for the melt down and no one in gov't is going to be held accountable and by this I mean prosecuted. There is a shift of money back and forth between gov't and Wall Street like a two handed game of poker and each side has five aces.

If you back GS you might get a return on your money. If you back the gov't someone else will get a return on your money.

^this.

Offering 5bln in common to the public in order to pay off TARP is a PR move.

asiaprop · Apr 15, 2009

164bn in cash and liquid assets? Who says so? Whatever the source this is absolute bs. Nobody but China on this planet earth currently has 164bn sitting around not the US Fed not the US government esp. not Goldman, LOL.

Quote from ASusilovic:

Goldman Sachs has amassed a war chest of $164bn in cash and liquid assets that could be used to buy distressed securities and loans, Goldmanâs chief financial officer said on Tuesday. David Viniar spoke as the bank sold $5bn in common stock â at $123 per share â which it will use to repay some $10bn from the US TARP scheme. Goldman on Monday reported $1.81bn in Q1 earnings, helped by a record $6.5bn in revenues in fixed income, commodities and currencies activities.

http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2009/04/14/54656/goldmans-blow-out-q1-figures/

Why not cleaning up their own level 3 assets ? Anybody recognized that in all that "earnings hype" not any single media commentator mentioned level 3 assets ???

asiaprop · Apr 15, 2009

very true point, on one point I need to, however, disagree. Some of the Congressmen and women are the biggest fools and clowns, its impossible for them to fool anyone else.

Quote from nutmeg:

I'm going to root for Goldman Sachs. They make fools out of our elected officials and worse yet Congress makes fools out of us when the average Joe protests the bailout funds, Congress does it anyways.

No one in private industry is going to be held accountable for the melt down and no one in gov't is going to be held accountable and by this I mean prosecuted. There is a shift of money back and forth between gov't and Wall Street like a two handed game of poker and each side has five aces.

If you back GS you might get a return on your money. If you back the gov't someone else will get a return on your money.

athlonmank8 · Apr 15, 2009

Quote from nutmeg:

I'm going to root for Goldman Sachs. They make fools out of our elected officials and worse yet Congress makes fools out of us when the average Joe protests the bailout funds, Congress does it anyways.

No one in private industry is going to be held accountable for the melt down and no one in gov't is going to be held accountable and by this I mean prosecuted. There is a shift of money back and forth between gov't and Wall Street like a two handed game of poker and each side has five aces.

If you back GS you might get a return on your money. If you back the gov't someone else will get a return on your money.

That's a little too logical to go over very well

Anaconda · Apr 15, 2009

Quote from ASusilovic:

Why not cleaning up their own level 3 assets ? Anybody recognized that in all that "earnings hype" not any single media commentator mentioned level 3 assets ???

That's the taxpayers' problem.

Renegen · Apr 15, 2009

Quote from asiaprop:

164bn in cash and liquid assets? Who says so? Whatever the source this is absolute bs. Nobody but China on this planet earth currently has 164bn sitting around not the US Fed not the US government esp. not Goldman, LOL.

I know, it doesn't make sense. Another way of putting it is that out of their whole balance sheet, they only have 164bln in cash or level 1 assets.

asiaprop · Apr 15, 2009

No they dont. You think Blankfein would subject himself appearing before a panel of total idiots who ask 5-6 times during the same congressional session "do you promise to repay all the money that was given to you"? That GS among others is abusing the system is nothing I would blame GS for, why? After all there are people in congress and in the senate (including "economics experts") who have zero clue about all the cash flows that occurred since last year. Let me give you an analogy: Lets say you work as trader for an investment bank and you know your bank is under enormous distress, meaning, its Friday and you know your firm may go under Monday morning or will be rescued and will give the market a huge relief rally. What is the best trade you could put on given the market has tanked a lot? Maybe buying a shit load of out of the money equity index call options on all market indexes globally might not be a bad idea. After all, either you go down on Monday and nobody gives a damn about your book anymore anyway or you will have a handsome payday big time the following week.

See, it does not matter whether any of the legislative understood anything that was going on and what the provided packages were used for and whether they worked or not. If nothing works the whole system will fail and nobody would ever blame you for your "good intentions" and there is a remote chance (can't really price the chance as its a few digists after the decimal point) that the funds will actually save some of the financial institutions and will ease credit...it does not even matter any of those guys understands how it works. After all they all did what they had to do to stay in the game, to save their seat.

So you want to blame the smart guys who freeride the system and play it smart or the idiots who dont understand the whole game? Its as if you want to punish the best poker player in the round for making the dumbest guy lose his shirt.

Quote from Renegen:

I know, it doesn't make sense. Another way of putting it is that out of their whole balance sheet, they only have 164bln in cash or level 1 assets.

krazykarl · Apr 15, 2009

Quote from asiaprop:

164bn in cash and liquid assets? Who says so? Whatever the source this is absolute bs. Nobody but China on this planet earth currently has 164bn sitting around not the US Fed not the US government esp. not Goldman, LOL.

The Fed has several trillion liquid right now(in existing dollars, not printable dollars which are infinite) - The US Treasury has a little more than double what the Fed has. Goldman has been netting 8-10 billion a quarter for the past 5+ years. Goldman very easily has this much.

Renegen · Apr 15, 2009

Quote from asiaprop:

No they dont. You think Blankfein would subject himself appearing before a panel of total idiots who ask 5-6 times during the same congressional session "do you promise to repay all the money that was given to you"? That GS among others is abusing the system is nothing I would blame GS for, why? After all there are people in congress and in the senate (including "economics experts") who have zero clue about all the cash flows that occurred since last year. Let me give you an analogy: Lets say you work as trader for an investment bank and you know your bank is under enormous distress, meaning, its Friday and you know your firm may go under Monday morning or will be rescued and will give the market a huge relief rally. What is the best trade you could put on given the market has tanked a lot? Maybe buying a shit load of out of the money equity index call options on all market indexes globally might not be a bad idea. After all, either you go down on Monday and nobody gives a damn about your book anymore anyway or you will have a handsome payday big time the following week.

See, it does not matter whether any of the legislative understood anything that was going on and what the provided packages were used for and whether they worked or not. If nothing works the whole system will fail and nobody would ever blame you for your "good intentions" and there is a remote chance (can't really price the chance as its a few digists after the decimal point) that the funds will actually save some of the financial institutions and will ease credit...it does not even matter any of those guys understands how it works. After all they all did what they had to do to stay in the game, to save their seat.

So you want to blame the smart guys who freeride the system and play it smart or the idiots who dont understand the whole game? Its as if you want to punish the best poker player in the round for making the dumbest guy lose his shirt.

Comon, #1 we are not out of the recession. It's a joke to say the Dow at 8,000 suddenly means the bailouts have worked.

#2 Can you save the banking system without raping the taxpayer? The answer is yes, as examples like Sweden have shown. Every day someone else comes on the air telling of a BETTER way of saving the system.

What the bankers want to do is to save themselves AND the system, I'd rather have someone working exclusively on saving the system. Don't you agree?