The Goldman VaR Exemption Question Escalates

It seems only yesterday that Zero Hedge had some questions in regard to Goldman's VaR Fed exemption. No response was received from 85 Broad. Today it appears several Congressmen, lead by Alan Grayson, are willing to drive a sharp stick pretty deep into the hornets' nest, by sending a letter directly to Wall Street Don Ben Bernanke, demanding an explanation exactly to the question of Goldman's VaR Exemption.

Among the reasons provided as casue for potential alarm are the following:

1) In the letter granting a regulatory exemption to Goldman Sachs, you stated that the SEC-approved VaR models it is now using are sufficiently conservative for the transition period to bank holding company. Please justify this statement.

2) If Goldman Sachs were required to adhere to standard Market Risk Rules imposed by the Federal Reserve on ordinary bank holding companies, how would its capital requirements differ from the current regulatory regime?

3) What is the difference in exposure to the taxpayer between these two regulatory regimes?

4) What is the difference in total risk to the portfolio between these two regulatory regimes?

5) Goldman Sachs stated that “As of June 26, 2009, total capital was $254.05 billion, consisting of $62.81 billion in total shareholders’ equity (common shareholders’ equity of $55.86 billion and preferred stock of $6.96 billion) and $191.24 billion in unsecured long-term borrowings.” As a percentage of capital, that’s a lot of long-term unsecured debt. Is any of this coming from the Government? In this last quarter, how much capital has Goldman Sachs received from the Federal Reserve and other government facilities such as FDIC-guaranteed debt, either directly or indirectly?

6) Many risk-management experts, most notably best-selling author Nassim Taleb, note that VaR models can dramatically understate risk. What is your overall view of Taleb’s argument, and of the utility of Value-at-Risk models as regulatory tools?

Zero Hedge had a rather comparable battery of questions, and believes it would be in the general interest of whatever remains of the general investing public, the one that for some reason or another still has not lost all faith in a fair and efficient marketplace, compliments of several major monopolists who have usurped exchanges and ECN as their personal taxpayer and speculator funded piggy banks.