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Washington anger over bank's AIG bailout cash
20.03.09
If Goldman Sachs is feeling the heat in Westminster, that is nothing compared with the anger it faces in Washington.
There, politicians are becoming increasingly incensed about the vast amount of taxpayer bailout money for collapsed insurer AIG that ended up in Goldman's coffers.
Earlier this week it emerged that Goldman had received $12.9 billion of the US taxpayer money that was spent keeping AIG alive.
That news created a wave of animosity against the firm, whose former chief executive Hank Paulson was the Treasury secretary in charge of the first wave of bailouts for the collapsed insurer.
It was even said that Paulson engineered the AIG bailout just to save Goldman, which had used AIG to insure the value of billions of dollars of toxic investments whose worth had plummeted.
Today, Goldman's chief financial officer attempted to clarify "certain misperceptions" about its relationship with AIG.
David Viniar admitted the bank had a $10 billion exposure to AIG but said: "Whether AIG failed or not, it would have had no material impact on Goldman."
He said he was not aware of any meetings between Goldman chief executive Lloyd Blankfein and Paulson prior to the bailout.
