Goldman Sachs has now paid to retire (at a decent price to taxpayers) all the warrants it issued the Treasury as part of the TARP program. It has paid back the $10 billion in TARP funds, of course. By one estimate, taxpayers realized a 23 percent annualized gain off of this investment.

So is Goldman Sachs now completely extricated from government bailout programs? Not quite. There's still the matter of FDIC-insured bonds. It sold $22 billion in such debt under the FDIC's Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program last winter. Reuters columnist Matt Goldstein argues that Goldman Sachs "should first retire all of its outstanding FDIC-backed debt" before it starts setting aside record sums for compensation.

"Something seems wrong with Goldman setting aside $11.4 billion for compensation, benefits and bonuses in the first-half of the year when it's still benefiting from all that government-guaranteed debt it sold," said Goldstein.

For more:
- here's the Reuters column

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