Goldman Sachs should stop debating, take whatever punishment the government has in store for it and try to move on, says senior writer Dan Freed.

NEW YORK (

TheStreet

) -- The more

Goldman Sachs

(GS) - Get Report

argues, the further its stock falls.

The scenario played out again Monday after a propaganda war with a Senate subcommittee broke out over the weekend in which both sides released various internal email messages by Goldman executives.

The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, chaired by Carl Levin (D., Mich.), tried to prove that Goldman got rich by betting against the housing market and its clients. Goldman countered with a rundown on quarterly revenue from its residential mortgage unit from 2007-08, attempting to demonstrate the firm lost more than it made from that business during that time frame.

A January 2007 e-mail from Goldman Sachs trader Fabrice Tourre was included in the company's disclosure over the weekend.

Goldman's protests raise certain questions. For example, if Goldman didn't get rich betting against the housing market and its clients, how did it get rich? The firm says it lost about $1.7 billion "related to

its residential mortgage-related products business," but what the heck does that mean? How is it defining its "residential mortgage-related products business?"

Are we just to take Goldman's word for it that the other activities that caused it to earn more than $2 billion in fiscal 2008 when so many other firms lost money or went out of business were unrelated to residential mortgages? Goldman chose not to tell its investors it was being investigated by the

Securities and Exchange Commission

because its attorney felt the case was not material, even though the SEC's fraud charges have knocked nearly 20% off of Goldman's stock price since they became public April 16.

Despite these issues, Goldman makes some valid points, and I continue to believe the SEC's case against the company is somewhat weak. As I have argued previously, the investors Goldman duped when it sold a toxic debt creation called Abacus 2007-AC1 were professionals, and they should have known what they were getting into, even if Goldman's disclosures might have been lacking. Also, it is hard to believe Goldman's lawyers would blow it on such a simple issue as disclosure.

But Goldman's argument misses a larger point. The company has still to make a simple and convincing case for why it needs to exist. Also, we all know that they engaged in weasel-like behavior, because that's what investment banks do. One good example of this is provided by Michael Lewis's account of short-seller Michael Burry in the book

The Big Short

.

Burry did get rich betting against the mortgage market, and, as Lewis tells it, his Wall Street salespeople, including one at Goldman, suddenly became unreachable when he started winning his bets.

Simply put, Goldman executives are not sympathetic figures, and whatever arguments their lawyers may come up with, they cannot convince us otherwise. They have gotten rich doing things that don't seem especially necessary while the economy has cratered. Some of this success may be a result of bending certain rules, while a large portion of it is due to getting rules rewritten years ago to suit their interests.

Arguing about the meaning of various statements in a handful of email messages misses this larger point.

Goldman needs to end this conversation, take whatever punishment the government has in store for it, and try to move on.

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Written by Dan Freed in New York

.