Did Goldman Sachs dissemble and equivocate in its responses to the New York Times? 
 
Based on these responses, the answer is yes.  Treasury Secretary Geithner may wish to keep that in mind the next time he looks to Goldman Sachs for his answers.
 
Mr. van Praag states "Starting in the mid-90s, we bought credit default swaps from AIG to protect our firm from the risk of a decline in the value of risk we had assumed on behalf some of our clients, (i.e. assets to which we had exposure)." Near the end of his email he again mentions "CDOs from our clients" (emphasis added).
 
His email never once mentions that the problematic CDOs requiring collateral calls from A.I.G. that precipitated its liquidity problems, the one's referenced in the report, seem to be chiefly 2004/5/6 vintage CDOs.  Goldman underwrote the Abacus CDOs on its own list, and Goldman also underwrote CDOs that featured prominently and in large portion on the lists of French Banks SocGen and Calyon as well as Bank of Montreal and Wachovia that also hedged this risk using CDSs with AIG.
 
When responding about whether or not Goldman would have trouble collecting on its hedges in the event of an A.I.G. collapse as Barofsky's report indicates, Mr. van Praag wrote that Barofsky's report stated a collapse  "'might have made it difficult for Goldman Sachs to collect on the credit protection it had purchased' (emphasis added by Mr. van Praag) – however, it might not, and it is our belief that it ultimately would not have done so."
 
For a firm that trumpets its risk management, Goldman seemed to present only one scenario on September 16, 2008.  Lehman had just gone bankrupt, Bank of America had just agreed to takeover Merrill Lynch, and banks were starved for liquidity just like A.I.G.  The banks' TARP bailout had not yet occurred.  I suggest that Goldman may be self-deluding with its claim to be stellar risk managers here: "I Retract My Apology and Call for More Regulation of Goldman Sachs."
 
Mr.