Is Goldman just a credit punt?

The Big Picture suggests that it might be, and provides this initially compelling illustration (which I have edited slightly to make it less confusing). However, I think that what we are really seeing is that both overall credit spreads and Goldman's stock price are driven by confidence. The more economic activity there is, the more money Goldman can make from the flow. A similar phenomenon was observable with the Merrill stock price in the 90s -- it acted like a call on the S&P, for similar reasons.

Update. Given ...the furore about Goldman's continued use of a SEC rather than FED VAR calculation, despite being a bank holding company, I am driven to wonder how big Goldie's IRC is. If it is just a giant credit punt, one might expect it to be enormous...