Blinded by the Bling! (Instead of the Light)

Apparently the fabulous profits "earned" by Goldman Sachs this quarter aren't quite enough for the investment banking firm.

According to this story by Allan Sloan in the Washington Post, they're haggling with Treasury over the price of the stock purchase warrants it gave the feds last fall.

Not in the economic biz, so I'll let Sloan explain the warrants:

"The warrants are very valuable, especially with the recent sharp run-up in Goldman's stock price. The warrants carry the right (but not the obligation) to buy 12.2 million Goldman shares at $122.90 each. Goldman's closing price of $160.03 on Monday put the warrants "in the money" by a bit more than $450 million. (That's the $37.13 difference between $160.03 and $122.90, multiplied by 12.2 million.)

Given that the warrants still have more than nine years to run, they're clearly worth more than $450 million because their owner has years of upside. However, because there's no market for such long Goldman warrants, their value is in the eye of the beholder (and the pricing modeler).

Alas, no one would tell me what the government is asking for the warrants or what Goldman is offering for them. "We are in discussions with the Treasury on the buyback of the warrant," said Goldman spokesman Lucas van Praag. "The purchase price has yet to be determined. . . . We believe that taxpayers should get a decent return, and we hope that our discussions with the Treasury will do just that." The Treasury declined to comment.

My estimate is that the Treasury is asking for $1 billion to $1.5 billion and Goldman is offering $500 million or so.

Under the law, Goldman, like other early TARP repayers, has the right to force the Treasury to sell back the warrants after a lengthy set of price arbitrations."

Why should Goldman show gratitude to the feds? It appears that Sloan feels as I do - that Goldman Sachs exists today only because the US government propped up the financial sector last fall.

"When I say that taxpayers kept Goldman alive, I'm not talking about the $10 billion of TARP money or the $12.9 billion of American International Group bailout money that Goldman got. The $10 billion was nice but not necessarily essential to Goldman's survival, and Goldman said it was holding enough assets and collateral to get all or almost all of the $12.9 billion it was owed by AIG had the government not bailed out the troubled insurer.

I'm talking about the way that U.S. and foreign governments -- in other words, taxpayers -- saved the world's financial system, saving Goldman in the process. Had many of the world's biggest institutions collapsed, which would have happened without taxpayer aid, Goldman would have been wiped out because the firms that owed it money would not have been able to meet their obligations.

I'm also talking about the Federal Reserve Board moving with lightning speed last fall to allow Goldman to become a bank holding company. By giving Goldman access to vast amounts of money it was making available to bank companies, the Fed ended panicky demands from Goldman customers that the firm immediately return the cash and securities it was holding for them. That was the equivalent of a run on the bank, which no institution can survive. Stopping it saved Goldman.

Now this is how Goldman shows its gratitude. It could have shelled out a few extra bucks and done the right thing for taxpayers (and ultimately for itself) by exercising good business judgment and looking generous. Instead, it's behaving in a way that brings to mind one of my favorite biblical verses, Deuteronomy 32:15: "So Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked . . . and spurned the Rock of his salvation." In these ultra-political days, filled with economic pain for so many Americans, that's not only the wrong way to act, it's foolish. A word I never thought I'd associate with Goldman."

Foolish seems too kind a word for Goldman's behavior. In "spurning the Rock of their salvation," Goldman has clearly become blinded by the light of all that gold they feel belongs only to them....