Goldman Sachs was on the brink of going under...

Editors note: It looks like, if not for the grace of the American taxpayer, Goldman Sachs would have gone under . . . and for this, they think they deserve huge bonuses.

. . .If it had gone on another week or two, Goldman would have failed, they would have gone the way of Lehman, and you’d be talking about Lloyd the way you talk about [Lehman CEO] Dick Fuld.”

. . .

Joe Hagan’s new piece in New York magazine brings out a lot of excellent new information, but the most interesting from my point of view is his insight about the period after the AIG bailout and before the announcement of the new FDIC lending program. It seems things were worse than even I thought at the bank, with then-COO John Winkelreid putting up his Nantucket house for sale in order to raise quick cash and management discussing taking the company private to avoid catastrophe. Hagan describes a bank that was in crisis, its share price plummeting to $47, one that was really rescued by the FDIC program, which made bank holding companies (which Goldman had just become, thanks to a hurried conversion) eligible for billions in government-backed lending.

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