Goldman Sachs Could Play Huge Role in Geithner’s Plan

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Earlier in the hearing, Tim Geithner suggested that Goldman Sachs could be one of five institutions helping to manage the public-private partnership program to buy up a bunch of toxic legacy assets from ailing banks.

Goldman has played a central role in this drama. As an institution, it’s been extremely close to the Treasury department. And, as Josh noted, it’s also about to pay off all of its TARP money (with the help, perhaps, of the other government money it received as an AIG counterparty) which will free it up to return to a status quo of paying enormous bonuses.

It’s also, of course, one of the institutions that helped bring the financial system to its knees–it holds many of the toxic assets in question and may be well placed to bid them up and inflate their prices at auction. (How you manage the fund to rescue financial institutions with toxic assets while you yourself hold those same assets has yet to be sussed out by committee members.)

Anyhow, in the event that you’re feeling left out and want a piece of the Goldman pie for yourself, you can apply with the government to be a private asset manager here.

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