Not much rides on Goldman Sachs‘ success at shedding TARP – just the future of Wall Street, the recovery of the U.S. and global economies, and saving whatever shreds remain of the American Dream. Though it may take some financial finagling to extricate itself from the government’s grip, Goldman’s storied stable of financial savants is as capable as any of casting off the yoke of socialism.

For Wall Street, Goldman fights for the right to pay people whatever the market will bear, enshrining the guiding principal of the marketplace that it is not how much money one earns, but how much more than the other guy. For the economy, everyone knows we need a healthy banking sector to run our particularly high-octane form of capitalism. As for the American Dream, what this country needs most in this time of financial peril is a hero, someone who can stand up to the regulatory Frankenstein shambling from the wreckage of such spectacularly failed government efforts as AIG and Lehman Brothers.

The only question really for Goldman shareholders is how big a bonus Lloyd Blankfein should get if he manages to achieve these lofty goals.

Christopher Kaufman; DealZone Editor

Deals of the day:

* Hong Kong Hotel and property owner Harbour Centre Development said it would sell its equity stake in a Hangzhou property firm to Chinese real-estate developer Greentown China Holdings for 1.3 billion yuan ($190.2 million).

* Cement equipment provider China National Materials Co will pay 1.01 billion yuan ($147.8 million) to its parent company for cement producer NBM, the firm said.

* Avocet Mining said it plans to buy Oslo-listed Wega Mining ASA for about $78.4 million in shares in a move that would create a gold company with annual output of almost 300,000 ounces.

* Telecom operator Tele2 said it would form a joint venture with Nordic rival Telenor to build a fourth generation mobile network in Sweden.

* A proposed buyout of eBay Inc’s Skype led by private equity, including Warburg Pincus and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, and the Web telephone company’s co-founders is unlikely to be completed, the Wall Street Journal cited sources as saying on its blog on Monday.

* Total SA boosted its hostile takeover offer for UTS Energy Corp by more than a third to C$1.75 a share on Monday, though its sweetened offer was quickly branded as inadequate by some of the Canadian oil sands developer’s biggest shareholders.

* BT Group, the British telecommunications carrier that holds 31 percent of India’s Tech Mahindra, said it backed its affiliate’s plan to acquire a stake in scandal-hit Satyam Computer Services.

(PHOTO: Lloyd Blankfein (R), CEO of Goldman Sachs, walks by the New York Stock Exchange in New York October 10, 2008. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton )

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