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[bacasper]

Employees just got million-dollar bonuses.

'Government Sachs' Strikes Gold... Again


By Robert Scheer

July 15, 2009


Connect the dots: Goldman Sachs made $3.44 billion in profit this past quarter, while the US deficit topped $1 trillion for the first time in the nation's history and appeared to be headed toward doubling that figure before the budget year is out. Since most of the increase in the federal deficit is due to bailing out the banks and salvaging the greater economy they helped destroy, why is the top investment bank doing so well?

Well, because that was the plan, as devised by Bush Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, a former CEO of Goldman Sachs. Remember that Lehman Brothers, Goldman's competitor, was allowed to go bankrupt. The Paulson crowd wouldn't let Lehman change its status to that of a bank holding company and thus qualify for federal funds; soon afterward, Goldman was granted just such a deal, worth a quick $10 billion. Much is now made of Goldman paying back part of its bailout money, but forgotten is the $12.9 billion that Goldman got as its cut of the $180 billion AIG payoff. That is money that will not be paid back.

And Goldman was not just another bank. Before Paulson ran the Treasury Department, another former Goldman head, Robert Rubin, pushed through the repeal of the Glass-Steagall controls on banking activity. While some now play down the significance of this radical deregulation, not so Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd C. Blankfein--at least not back in June 2007, when the markets were still doing well. "If you take an historical perspective," Blankfein told the New York Times by way of explaining his company's spectacular success at the time, "we've come full circle, because that is exactly what the Rothschilds or J.P. Morgan the banker were doing in their heyday. What caused an aberration was the Glass-Steagall Act."

That 1933 act was repealed in a law signed by President Bill Clinton at Rubin's urging, and in the following eight years Goldman Sachs recorded a 265 percent growth in its balance sheet. "Back then," the Wall Street Journal reports, "Goldman was churning out profits by trading credit derivatives, speculating on currencies and oil and placing big bets [on] the stock market."

Why didn't the federal government just lend the money to the states? Why was all the money thrown at Wall Street instead of needy homeowners or struggling school systems? Because the federal government works for Goldman and not for us. Indeed, when it comes to the banking bailout, Goldman Sachs is the government.

So much so that last fall the New York Times ran a story, headlined "The Guys From 'Government Sachs'," that stated: "Goldman's presence in the [Treasury] department and around the federal response to the financial bailout is so ubiquitous that other bankers and competitors have given the star-studded firm a new nickname: Government Sachs."

One of those stars was Stephen Friedman, another former head of Goldman. Friedman was both a director of the company and chairman of the New York Federal Reserve.

They're not hurting.

full article at link

[mithridates]

Damn you Adolfarack Hitlobama!

shakes fist at the sky

[asmith]

As an American, this is serious business. It means we no longer have a democracy. Both parties are being run by Wall Street elites. The Ivy-League mafia is now in control

[bacasper]

[RJjr]

Here's an article about the wives of Goldman Sachs executives in the Hamptons.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/08052009/gossip/pagesix/goldman_sachs_wives_hate_to_wait_183044.htm

The people who made these two women wait in line like everyone else must've been mean ole antisemites.

[Fox]

[RufusW]

[mises]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/business/09paulson.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=print

[bacasper]

[Enrico Palazzo]

[mises]

http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/GS%20NNDB.jpg

[bacasper]