After Goldman President Gary Cohn told Bloomberg TV that he’d like Blankfein’s CEO job, he said

“my personal view is we’re going to need a [Lehman-like] moment…Politicians sometimes need the moment in order to do what they need to do.”  (Watch it here.) (H/t Morning Money, here.)

And, by “what they need to do,” he means, of course, a full and complete bailout of the entire creditor class holding any and all debts of European sovereigns and banks.  Putting taxpayers on the hook and moving private sector debts to the public sector balance sheets is what he is saying needs to be done, presumably at 100 cents on the dollar as he/Goldman/Wall Street are accustomed to.  Put another way, he is saying that European governments and international organizations have to do whatever it takes to bailout the creditors and banks, no matter how stupid, risky, or irresponsible their lending and trading activities were. 

Again, not one moments thought about what this is going to do to the taxpayers, citizens and governments who will be bailing out the banks and creditors.  And, not one moments thought to the moral hazard this creates for the banks, creditors and other lenders, who are now all accustomed to having their activities fully backed up by governments and taxpayers worldwide. And, best of all for them, no accountability and no strings.  They live in a world where they get paid and get rich no matter what. 

That, of course is what happened in the US after the Lehman collapse, er, I mean, “moment’:  the US government spent, lent, pledged, guaranteed or otherwise used trillions of dollars to prevent Wall Street’s recklessness from crashing the entire financial system.  The US government then had to use trillions more to stop the worst economic crisis from becoming a second Great Depression, as a direct result of the Wall Street created financial collapse.

Whether European banks and creditors should or should not be bailed out by taxpayers and regardless of the merits, it should be stated clearly what Goldman and Wall Street want and what they want means:  they want the taxpayer gravy train to go on forever.  That’s why they are fighting financial reform, which is designed to prevent Wall Street and too big to fail banks from getting bailouts and sticking their hands in the taxpayer pockets again and again.  To Gary Cohn, Goldman, Wall Street and the too big to fail banks, this is exactly what they want and this is exactly what is behind Cohn’s words.

Remember, if Goldman’s lips are moving, taxpayers better grab their wallets and run!