Gretchen Morgenson jumps on the “Goldman as the root of all evil” train yesterday in the New York Times. Her take on the theme is that Henry Paulson had inappropriate contact with Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman’s (NYSE:GS) CEO, during the credit crisis.
Ms. Morgenson uses phone records that The Times obtained which show that Paulson talked more often with Blankfein then he did with other bank executives. She pays particular attention to contact between the two during the week in which AIG (NYSE:AIG) was rescued and uses that to suggest that there is more here than just a Treasury Secretary keeping up with market events.
I’m tired of this whole debate and tend to think that it serves nothing so much as to fill space on a slow August news day. Therefore, I’m going to try and do something more productive than foisting my views on your eyeballs this Sunday morning.
If you would like the best follow-up that I’ve seen on the article, I’d recommend that you go to Naked Capitalism and The Economics of Contempt. Yves Smith does a good job supporting the thesis that Goldman and indeed all of the participants are getting sweetheart deals while the Economics of Contempt author nicely dispels some of the myths surrounding Goldman’s exposure to AIG.
Now on to other things.
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