re: #86 garhighway

I’m not sure that we needed to. They were hurt when the markets froze, just like anyone else, and Treasury made them take TARP money at that famous meeting in Washington when they basically said to the biggest banks: “your choices are to sign the paper or sign the paper”. No one builds a financial business that can withstand the complete freezing of the financial markets. Nobody could handle that.

They paid back TARP in about 15 minutes, while the companies that needed it still haven’t done so.

Understand, I am not saying that what they do is, on balance, good for our country. Matt Tiabbi was engaging in a bit of hyperbole with his “giant vampire squid” comment, but I don’t think he was too far off the mark. But stupid they are not, and I would bet real money that everybody big in financial services business has had an internal economist issue a report like the one at GS, and I would further wager they all say pretty much the same thing in terms of the economic impact of the GOP budget. That’s not about politics, it’s about math. And economists tend to be good at math.

I recall the Tiabbi piece. It was a pretty scathing indictment. That they got any money at all was pretty revealing. A lot of it went where it should not have gone.

As for the math, I’d have to agree.