Maybe Goldman Isn't So Evil After All

The kind of person one might ordinarily look to for such an argument is Linus Wilson, a professor at the University of Louisiana, and a frequent critic of the bailout especially TARP payments to banks like Citigroup (C), Bank of America (BAC), JP Morgan Chase (JPM) and Morgan Stanley (MS) among many others.

However, Wilson surprised me Friday by saying the government made the right move in paying Goldman and other counterparties like Societe Generale and Deutsche Bank (DB)in full.

"They do have a decent argument that there was a run on the investment banks [at the time] and if they did not make the counterparties whole that could have created further runs on the investment banks in the U.S. and all over the world," Wilson told me.

The whole debate about how whether Goldman is a vampire squid on the face of humanity is one I don't feel like rehashing here. I simply want to note that, for me, at least, someone who has followed Goldman for several years, this bailout of Goldman via AIG has been a big mark against it. And now I must admit that it really doesn't appear to be as much of a gift as I'd thought. So, I'm really sorry Goldman, you big secretive money making machine. How could I ever have thought ill of you?

-- Written by Dan Freed in New York.

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