I hate to join the pile-on against Goldman Sachs, the Wall Street firm that everybody loves to hate.  But items like this make me want to pull out my hair in frustration.

    The Financial Times reports tonight that Goldman has apparently won part of the mandate to manage the initial public offering of AIG's Asian life insurance unit -- AIA -- in Hong Kong.  The offering is expected to be for $10 billion or more, and Goldman will be one of seven investment banks to sell it.

     As far as I know, Goldman didn't do anything improper to get this deal.  It's a big IPO, Goldman is a top player in the league tables and this is one of its core competencies. 

     But still.   Goldman Sachs, more than any other firm on Wall Street, has managed to profit on almost every angle of the biggest single trainwreck (AIG) in the biggest financial crisis this country has ever seen.

Before turning to yesterday's news from Goldman Sachs, a quick trip down memory lane.

Older (or should I say "more experienced"?) federal budget observers will remember the "transition quarter" or "TQ," the three-month period when the federal government switched from a fiscal year that began on July 1 to the current fiscal year that begins on October 1.

The change was mandated by the Congressional Budget Act of 1974.  It was intended to give Congress and the president three extra months to get all of the work on the budget done before the fiscal year began and to reduce what at the time was considered to be an overuse of continuing resolutions to fund the government.

(Please stop laughing about that last line about stopping the reliance on continung resolutions.)