Simon Johnson uses the headline transaction to show how TBTFs, typified by Goldman, are using their TBTF status to take increasingly risky moves where gains will be privatized gains and losses socialized. His conclusion is below. I included the link to his web page for his new book to atone for the longer than usual quote.

In our assessment (13 Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover and The Next Financial Meltdown, out today), based on the details of financial deregulation over the past 30 years, the prevailing belief system of top bankers, and the big banks' incentives to take risk, we are all heading for trouble.  The "financial reform" legislation currently before Congress and still prevailing pro-banker attitudes at the top of the Obama administration are really not helpful.  The country's course was set by a fateful meeting at the White House last March; a resurrected, unreformed, and still crazy system - symbolized by 13 bankers - is in the driving seat now.

At best, this will be another very nasty boom-bust-bailout cycle.  At worst, we are heading towards a situation in which our banks are so massive that when they fail, there is no way the government (or anyone else) can offset the damage that causes.

This time our government debt (held by the private sector) will roughly double - increasing by 40 percentage points of GDP - as a direct result of what the banks did.  We've lost more than 8 million jobs since December 2008 - for what good reason?  Next time could easily be worse.

You can disagree with our analysis - provide your own facts and figures, and we'll have that debate here or elsewhere; the more public, the better from our perspective.  And you should certainly want to improve on our policy prescriptions.  We put forward some simple ideas that can be implemented and would help - our versions can also be communicated and argued widely: if banks are too big to fail, making them smaller is surely necessary (although likely not sufficient).

But don't ignore the question.  Don't assume that this time Goldman and its ilk will avoid getting carried away - they are just doing their jobs, after all, and their job description says "make money"; system stability is someone else's job.  

And also don't presume that, just because the big banks and their friends seem to hold all the cards, they will necessarily prevail in the future.

In all previous confrontations between elected authority and concentrated financial power in the United States, the democratic element has prevailed (see chapter 1 in 13 Bankers; also Monday's WSJ, behind the paywall).  This can happen again - but only if you stay engaged, argue this out with everyone you know (including your elected representatives), and help change the mainstream consensus on banking definitively and irrevocably.