July 16, 2010
In its report on Goldman Sachs $500 million settlement of its case with the SEC, NPR described Goldman as a “survivor” of the financial crisis. While Goldman obviously did survive the crisis, it only did so with massive assistance from the government. This included loans through the TARP, loans and loan guarantees from the Federal Reserve Board and the FDIC, and the payment of $13 billion in obligations from AIG. However the most important form of assistance stemmed from the Fed’s decision to allow Goldman to become a bank holding company in the middle of the crisis, giving it the explicit protection of the Fed and the FDIC.
Describing Goldman as a “survivor” may imply that it managed to get through the crisis by its own ingenuity and mastery of finance. In fact, Goldman survived in the same way that an earthquake victim survives when the rescue squad digs them out from the rubble and rushes them to the emergency care ward. Its ingenuity in this context was only in its ability to get its political allies to come to its aid with enormous amounts of taxpayer dollars while demanding almost nothing in return.
Btw, it would be interesting to know how much Goldman made on the deal for which it is paying this fine. If the fine is not many times larger than the profit, it is not sending much of a message. The probability of getting caught in this sort of fraud is very low. It is a safe bet that the SEC never would have brought its case if the participants at Goldman had not been incredibly foolish in leaving a substantial paper (e-mail) trail. Had they been somewhat smarter, the SEC would have had nothing with which to make their case.
Given the low probability of detection, a fine has to be very large relative to the potential gains from fraud in order to provide an effective deterrence. This, and other pieces on the settlement, never even discuss this issue.
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