t r u t h o u t | Goldman Can't Say How Much It Made From Housing Crash

Washington - A congressional commission pressed Goldman Sachs executives Wednesday to spell out how much their company has earned from its exotic bets against the housing market, including $20 billion in wagers that helped force a $162 billion taxpayer bailout of the American International Group.

However, Goldman's president and chief risk officer told members of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission that their company never breaks out its figures that way.

"We can dig and dig and dig," Goldman President Gary Cohn said in sworn testimony. "We won't find that report."

Many of Goldman's trades with AIG offset protection it wrote for clients on mortgage securities, but McClatchy reported Tuesday that Goldman wagered its own money on some swaps purchased from AIG. A special Senate investigations panel disclosed in April that Goldman bet billions of dollars of its own money on a housing downturn.

The panel, which opened two days of hearings into Goldman's dealings with AIG, has been seeking information since February on how much the Wall Street giant reaped from bets against the housing market. Overall, Goldman posted profits of $2.32 billion in 2008, despite the meltdown, and $13.4 billion in 2009. Earlier in June, commission leaders subpoenaed Goldman, accusing the Wall Street giant of deluging them with 2.5 billion documents.

The commission also heard Wednesday from the man who oversaw AIG's disastrous decision to insure nearly $80 billion in subprime mortgage securities. Joseph Cassano, who recently was cleared of criminal wrongdoing after lengthy FBI and Securities and Exchange Commission inquiries, emerged publicly for the first time since the economic meltdown and said that his ouster might have cost taxpayers tens of billions of dollars.

via www.truth-out.org