Reply #58: Sure Paulson was their CEO, but all the banks got money

[Lucky Luciano]

stuffed onto their balance sheets. Why is Goldman the more guilty among the banks? They paid back their TARP money and are using huge profits to pay the upcoming bonuses. I do acknowledge that the government (FDIC) has guaranteed some of their credit (part of that other $13T people talking about are these sorts of credit guarantees - not actual handing over of money like TARP) which gave them more strength when they were down, but it is probably not necessary anymore - however, Goldman will not ask to take the guarantee off unless having the guarantees forces bonuses to be highly restricted. One could argue that the government should prevent bonuses while there are exceptional guarantees - but I would make that exclusive of those overnight rescues - like JPM should not have to suffer from compensation restrictions due to the guarantees they got from taking over Bear or WaMu - similarly for BAC taking over MER and WFC taking over WB.