Chump Change From Goldman? With a state subsidy? To big to fail again?

[WhiskeyGirl]

...As I have said before, bank profits are a good thing and we should be happy that our financial system is healing, but clearly Goldman trades under a government subsidy. And it has benefited in other ways as Matt Taibbi, the financial writer, has colorfully noted.

I don’t fully agree with Mr. Taibbi, but to illustrate this problem you need only review the recent table from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency on trading profits of bank holding companies in the first quarter of 2009.

Goldman’s trading revenue in the first quarter was fully 69 percent of its total revenue. Goldman is way at the top, and the next bank is JPMorgan Chase, with trading revenue making up 13 percent of total revenue.

Again, we should be happy that banks can profit and pay taxes — but regulators should take into account the fact that bank holding companies, a group that now includes Goldman, are regulated entities and should not be hedge funds.

I don’t want to jump on the let’s-hate-Goldman bandwagon here, but there should be concern. Goldman may be taking more risk than it should because of the government’s guarantee, since it is too big to fail. There is also the broader issue of whether banks should operate primarily as trading entities.

http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/23/chump-change-from-goldman/?hp

Has business at Goldman changed at all since they converted to an ordinary bank? 

Is it business as usual, while using money from FDIC?  Other government money?

[WhiskeyGirl]

So what’s wrong with Goldman posting $3.44 billion in second-quarter profits, what’s wrong with the company so far earmarking $11.4 billion in compensation for its employees? What’s wrong is that this is not free-market earnings but an almost pure state subsidy.

...we were told, was the reason we needed to pilfer massive amounts of middle-class tax revenue and hand it over to the same guys who had just blown up the financial world. We’d save their asses, they’d save ours. That was the deal.

http://smirkingchimp.com/author/matt_taibbi

I also saw on TV that Goldman (and perhaps others?) pay little if any U.S. taxes, and reap benefits and access to money not available to others. 

Where is the money for small and medium businesses on Main Street?  The ones that create jobs?

Main Street is losing their homes and jobs at an alarming rate, Wall Street is paying record wages and bonuses.