Geithner: 2008 bailout not aimed at Goldman -WSJ

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Friday denied that emergency government action taken last year to shore up the U.S banking system was tailored to the interests of Goldman Sachs (GS.N) or any other firm.

"We have been forced to do just extraordinary things and, frankly, offensive things to help save the economy," Geithner said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal and Digg, an online site where users share and rate articles.

"I am completely confident that none of those decisions ... had anything to do with the specific interest of any individual firm, much less Goldman Sachs," he said.

The U.S. Congress, acting on the urgent advice of then Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, a former Goldman Sachs chief executive, last year put up $700 billion to prevent the banking system from collapsing amid a global credit crisis

The Treasury, under Paulson, and the Federal Reserve also crafted a massive bailout of insurer American International Group (AIG.N), that enabled it to pay counterparties, including Goldman, billions of dollars that might otherwise have been lost.

Geithner, who was president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York during the crisis and therefore close to all of decisions that were taken, said government had a duty to act in the face of such a grave threat in order to prevent an even worse outcome.

"The basic imperative...in a crisis like this (is) to protect people who are innocent of the mistakes that brought us to this place," he said in the interview. link....