Goldie Mac (Goldman Sachs + Freddie Mac)

The Wall Street Journal of July 15, 2009, added another to the financial firm of Goldman Sachs’s growing list of nicknames—“Goldie Mac.” This a reminder of Freddie Mac/Fannie Mae—government sponsored enterprises that required huge federal bailouts:
 
“Goldman will surely deny that its risk-taking is subsidized by the taxpayer—but then so did Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, right up to the bitter end. An implicit government guarantee is only free until it’s not, and when the bill comes due it tends to be huge. So for the moment, Goldman Sachs—or should we say Goldie Mac?—enjoys the best of both worlds: outsize profits for its traders and shareholders and a taxpayer backstop should anything go wrong.”
 
Other Goldman Sachs nicknames include “Goldman Sucks/Goldman Sux,” “Goldmine Sacks/Goldmine Sachs” (first cited in 1997), “Golden Sacks” (first cited in 1998), “Golden Slacks” (first cited in 2006), “The United States of Goldman Sachs” (first cited in 2007), “Government Sachs” (first cited in 2008), “Government Sucks” (first cited in 2009), “Vampire Squid” (coined in 2009) and “Godman Shafts/Goldman Shafts” (first cited in 2010).
   
 
Wikipedia: Goldman Sachs
The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., or simply Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS), is a bank holding company that engages in investment banking, securities services and investment management. Goldman Sachs was founded in 1869, and is headquartered in the Lower Manhattan area of New York City at 85 Broad Street but has its secondary office at 30 Hudson Street, Jersey City, New Jersey. The firm has offices in all global financial centers and acts as a financial advisor and money manager for corporations, governments, and wealthy families around the world. Goldman offers its clients mergers & acquisitions advice, underwriting services, asset management, and engages in proprietary trading, and private equity deals. It is a primary dealer in the U.S. Treasury securities market.
 
Former Goldman Sachs employees such as Henry Paulson and Robert Rubin have held high positions in the federal government, regardless of which party was in the White House.
 
Wikipedia: Freddie Mac
The Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (FHLMC) (NYSE: FRE), known as Freddie Mac, is a government sponsored enterprise (GSE) of the United States federal government. Freddie Mac has its headquarters in the Tyson’s Corner CDP in unincorporated Fairfax County, Virginia.
 
The FHLMC was created in 1970 to expand the secondary market for mortgages in the US. Along with other GSEs, Freddie Mac buys mortgages on the secondary market, pools them, and sells them as mortgage-backed securities to investors on the open market. This secondary mortgage market increases the supply of money available for mortgages lending and increases the money available for new home purchases. The name, “Freddie Mac”, was a acronym of the company’s full name that had been adopted officially for ease of identification (see “GSEs” below for other examples).
 
On September 7, 2008, Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) director James B. Lockhart III announced he had put Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac under the conservatorship of the FHFA (see Federal takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac). The action has been described as “one of the most sweeping government interventions in private financial markets in decades”.
 
The Wall Street Journal
REVIEW & OUTLOOK JULY 16, 2009
A Tale of Two Bailouts
Goldman’s profits, CIT’s trouble, and ‘too big to fail.’
(...)
Goldman will surely deny that its risk-taking is subsidized by the taxpayer—but then so did Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, right up to the bitter end. An implicit government guarantee is only free until it’s not, and when the bill comes due it tends to be huge. So for the moment, Goldman Sachs—or should we say Goldie Mac?—enjoys the best of both worlds: outsize profits for its traders and shareholders and a taxpayer backstop should anything go wrong.
 
The Business Insider
WSJ Trashes Goldman: Subsidized “Goldie Mac” Making Billions At Taxpayer Expense
John Carney|Jul. 15, 2009, 9:08 AM
The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page this morning reminds us that Goldman Sachs is still operating under an implicit government guarantee that puts taxpayers on the line for any losses while its partners enrich themselves from profits.
 
It’s ugly.
     
The Business Insider
Matt Taibbi’s “Vampire Squid” Takedown Of Goldman Sachs Is Finally Online
John Carney|Jul. 16, 2009, 9:28 AM
(...)
What’s fascinating to us is how the spirit of Taibbi’s piece, if not its details, has really caught on. Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal attacked Goldman Sachs as a heavily subsidized, implicitly guaranteed firm akin to Fannie Mae. They called it “Goldie Mac.”