European Bank Run Downward Spiral, Final Phase Of Goldman’s World Domination Plan

[Steven Gaal]

The European Bank Run Downward Spiral, Final Phase Of Goldman’s World Domination Plan

===============o=================o==================o============

link http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article31653.html

[Steven Gaal]

The European Bank Run Downward Spiral, Final Phase Of Goldman’s World Domination Plan

===============o=================o==================o============

link http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article31653.html

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVooooVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVo

Yes the Bankers to RULE.....

Bankers have seized Europe: Goldman Sachs Has Taken Over

by Paul Craig Roberts

On November 25, two days after a failed German government bond auction in which Germany was unable to sell 35% of its offerings of 10-year bonds, the German finance minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble said that Germany might retreat from its demands that the private banks that hold the troubled sovereign debt from Greece, Italy, and Spain must accept part of the cost of their bailout by writing off some of the debt. The private banks want to avoid any losses either by forcing the Greek, Italian, and Spanish governments to make good on the bonds by imposing extreme austerity on their citizens, or by having the European Central Bank print euros with which to buy the sovereign debt from the private banks. Printing money to make good on debt is contrary to the ECB’s charter and especially frightens Germans, because of the Weimar experience with hyperinflation.

Obviously, the German government got the message from the orchestrated failed bond auction. As I wrote at the time, there is no reason for Germany, with its relatively low debt to GDP ratio compared to the troubled countries, not to be able to sell its bonds.

If Germany’s creditworthiness is in doubt, how can Germany be expected to bail out other countries? Evidence that Germany’s failed bond auction was orchestrated is provided by troubled Italy’s successful bond auction two days later.

Strange, isn’t it. Italy, the largest EU country that requires a bailout of its debt, can still sell its bonds, but Germany, which requires no bailout and which is expected to bear a disproportionate cost of Italy’s, Greece’s and Spain’s bailout, could not sell its bonds.

In my opinion, the failed German bond auction was orchestrated by the US Treasury, by the European Central Bank and EU authorities, and by the private banks that own the troubled sovereign debt.

My opinion is based on the following facts. Goldman Sachs and US banks have guaranteed perhaps one trillion dollars or more of European sovereign debt by selling swaps or insurance against which they have not reserved. The fees the US banks received for guaranteeing the values of European sovereign debt instruments simply went into profits and executive bonuses. This, of course, is what ruined the American insurance giant, AIG, leading to the TARP bailout at US taxpayer expense and Goldman Sachs’ enormous profits.

If any of the European sovereign debt fails, US financial institutions that issued swaps or unfunded guarantees against the debt are on the hook for large sums that they do not have. The reputation of the US financial system probably could not survive its default on the swaps it has issued. Therefore, the failure of European sovereign debt would renew the financial crisis in the US, requiring a new round of bailouts and/or a new round of Federal Reserve “quantitative easing,” that is, the printing of money in order to make good on irresponsible financial instruments, the issue of which enriched a tiny number of executives.

Certainly, President Obama does not want to go into an election year facing this prospect of high profile US financial failure. So, without any doubt, the US Treasury wants Germany out of the way of a European bailout.

The private French, German, and Dutch banks, which appear to hold most of the troubled sovereign debt, don’t want any losses. Either their balance sheets, already ruined by Wall Street’s fraudulent derivatives, cannot stand further losses or they fear the drop in their share prices from lowered earnings due to write-downs of bad sovereign debts. In other words, for these banks big money is involved, which provides an enormous incentive to get the German government out of the way of their profit statements.

The European Central Bank does not like being a lesser entity than the US Federal Reserve and the UK’s Bank of England. The ECB wants the power to be able to undertake “quantitative easing” on its own. The ECB is frustrated by the restrictions put on its powers by the conditions that Germany required in order to give up its own currency and the German central bank’s control over the country’s money supply. The EU authorities want more “unity,” by which is meant less sovereignty of the member countries of the EU. Germany, being the most powerful member of the EU, is in the way of the power that the EU authorities desire to wield.

Thus, the Germans bond auction failure, an orchestrated event to punish Germany and to warn the German government not to obstruct “unity” or loss of individual country sovereignty.

Germany, which has been browbeat since its defeat in World War II, has been made constitutionally incapable of strong leadership. Any sign of German leadership is quickly quelled by dredging up remembrances of the Third Reich. As a consequence, Germany has been pushed into an European Union that intends to destroy the political sovereignty of the member governments, just as Abe Lincoln destroyed the sovereignty of the American states.

Who will rule the New Europe? Obviously, the private European banks and Goldman Sachs.

The new president of the European Central Bank is Mario Draghi. This person was Vice Chairman and Managing Director of Goldman Sachs International and a member of Goldman Sachs’ Management Committee. Draghi was also Italian Executive Director of the World Bank, Governor of the Bank of Italy, a member of the governing council of the European Central Bank, a member of the board of directors of the Bank for International Settlements, and a member of the boards of governors of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the Asian Development Bank, and Chairman of the Financial Stability Board.

Obviously, Draghi is going to protect the power of bankers.

Italy’s new prime minister, who was appointed not elected, was a member of Goldman Sachs Board of International Advisers. Mario Monti was appointed to the European Commission, one of the governing organizations of the EU. Monti is European Chairman of the Trilateral Commission, a US organization that advances American hegemony over the world. Monti is a member of the Bilderberg group and a founding member of the Spinelli group, an organization created in September 2010 to facilitate integration within the EU.

Just as an unelected banker was installed as prime minister of Italy, an unelected banker was installed as prime minister of Greece. Obviously, they are intended to produce the bankers’ solution to the sovereign debt crisis.

Greece’s new appointed prime minister, Lucas Papademos, was Governor of the Bank of Greece. From 2002-2010. He was Vice President of the European Central Bank. He, also, is a member of America’s Trilateral Commission.

Jacques Delors, a founder of the European Union, promised the British Trade Union Congress in 1988 that the European Commission would require governments to introduce pro-labor legislation. Instead, we find the banker-controlled European Commission demanding that European labor bail out the private banks by accepting lower pay, fewer social services, and a later retirement.

The European Union, just like everything else, is merely another scheme to concentrate wealth in a few hands at the expense of European citizens, who are destined, like Americans, to be the serfs of the 21st century.

[Steven Gaal]

The European Bank Run Downward Spiral, Final Phase Of Goldmans World Domination Plan

===============o=================o==================o============

link http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article31653.html

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVooooVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVo

Yes the Bankers to RULE.....

Bankers have seized Europe: Goldman Sachs Has Taken Over

by Paul Craig Roberts

On November 25, two days after a failed German government bond auction in which Germany was unable to sell 35% of its offerings of 10-year bonds, the German finance minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble said that Germany might retreat from its demands that the private banks that hold the troubled sovereign debt from Greece, Italy, and Spain must accept part of the cost of their bailout by writing off some of the debt. The private banks want to avoid any losses either by forcing the Greek, Italian, and Spanish governments to make good on the bonds by imposing extreme austerity on their citizens, or by having the European Central Bank print euros with which to buy the sovereign debt from the private banks. Printing money to make good on debt is contrary to the ECBs charter and especially frightens Germans, because of the Weimar experience with hyperinflation.

Obviously, the German government got the message from the orchestrated failed bond auction. As I wrote at the time, there is no reason for Germany, with its relatively low debt to GDP ratio compared to the troubled countries, not to be able to sell its bonds.

If Germanys creditworthiness is in doubt, how can Germany be expected to bail out other countries? Evidence that Germanys failed bond auction was orchestrated is provided by troubled Italys successful bond auction two days later.

Strange, isnt it. Italy, the largest EU country that requires a bailout of its debt, can still sell its bonds, but Germany, which requires no bailout and which is expected to bear a disproportionate cost of Italys, Greeces and Spains bailout, could not sell its bonds.

In my opinion, the failed German bond auction was orchestrated by the US Treasury, by the European Central Bank and EU authorities, and by the private banks that own the troubled sovereign debt.

My opinion is based on the following facts. Goldman Sachs and US banks have guaranteed perhaps one trillion dollars or more of European sovereign debt by selling swaps or insurance against which they have not reserved. The fees the US banks received for guaranteeing the values of European sovereign debt instruments simply went into profits and executive bonuses. This, of course, is what ruined the American insurance giant, AIG, leading to the TARP bailout at US taxpayer expense and Goldman Sachs enormous profits.

If any of the European sovereign debt fails, US financial institutions that issued swaps or unfunded guarantees against the debt are on the hook for large sums that they do not have. The reputation of the US financial system probably could not survive its default on the swaps it has issued. Therefore, the failure of European sovereign debt would renew the financial crisis in the US, requiring a new round of bailouts and/or a new round of Federal Reserve quantitative easing, that is, the printing of money in order to make good on irresponsible financial instruments, the issue of which enriched a tiny number of executives.

Certainly, President Obama does not want to go into an election year facing this prospect of high profile US financial failure. So, without any doubt, the US Treasury wants Germany out of the way of a European bailout.

The private French, German, and Dutch banks, which appear to hold most of the troubled sovereign debt, dont want any losses. Either their balance sheets, already ruined by Wall Streets fraudulent derivatives, cannot stand further losses or they fear the drop in their share prices from lowered earnings due to write-downs of bad sovereign debts. In other words, for these banks big money is involved, which provides an enormous incentive to get the German government out of the way of their profit statements.

The European Central Bank does not like being a lesser entity than the US Federal Reserve and the UKs Bank of England. The ECB wants the power to be able to undertake quantitative easing on its own. The ECB is frustrated by the restrictions put on its powers by the conditions that Germany required in order to give up its own currency and the German central banks control over the countrys money supply. The EU authorities want more unity, by which is meant less sovereignty of the member countries of the EU. Germany, being the most powerful member of the EU, is in the way of the power that the EU authorities desire to wield.

Thus, the Germans bond auction failure, an orchestrated event to punish Germany and to warn the German government not to obstruct unity or loss of individual country sovereignty.

Germany, which has been browbeat since its defeat in World War II, has been made constitutionally incapable of strong leadership. Any sign of German leadership is quickly quelled by dredging up remembrances of the Third Reich. As a consequence, Germany has been pushed into an European Union that intends to destroy the political sovereignty of the member governments, just as Abe Lincoln destroyed the sovereignty of the American states.

Who will rule the New Europe? Obviously, the private European banks and Goldman Sachs.

The new president of the European Central Bank is Mario Draghi. This person was Vice Chairman and Managing Director of Goldman Sachs International and a member of Goldman Sachs Management Committee. Draghi was also Italian Executive Director of the World Bank, Governor of the Bank of Italy, a member of the governing council of the European Central Bank, a member of the board of directors of the Bank for International Settlements, and a member of the boards of governors of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the Asian Development Bank, and Chairman of the Financial Stability Board.

Obviously, Draghi is going to protect the power of bankers.

Italys new prime minister, who was appointed not elected, was a member of Goldman Sachs Board of International Advisers. Mario Monti was appointed to the European Commission, one of the governing organizations of the EU. Monti is European Chairman of the Trilateral Commission, a US organization that advances American hegemony over the world. Monti is a member of the Bilderberg group and a founding member of the Spinelli group, an organization created in September 2010 to facilitate integration within the EU.

Just as an unelected banker was installed as prime minister of Italy, an unelected banker was installed as prime minister of Greece. Obviously, they are intended to produce the bankers solution to the sovereign debt crisis.

Greeces new appointed prime minister, Lucas Papademos, was Governor of the Bank of Greece. From 2002-2010. He was Vice President of the European Central Bank. He, also, is a member of Americas Trilateral Commission.

Jacques Delors, a founder of the European Union, promised the British Trade Union Congress in 1988 that the European Commission would require governments to introduce pro-labor legislation. Instead, we find the banker-controlled European Commission demanding that European labor bail out the private banks by accepting lower pay, fewer social services, and a later retirement.

The European Union, just like everything else, is merely another scheme to concentrate wealth in a few hands at the expense of European citizens, who are destined, like Americans, to be the serfs of the 21st century.

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVooooooooVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

======================oooooooo======================

= related = _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Monday, 5 December 2011

Goldman Sachs & Hive Consciousness

"Once inside the machine

One can merge intelligence" Inherit the Disease

The current Governor of the Bank of Canada is a Goldman Sachs disciple

Contributor: "YYC"

link http://yayacanada.blogspot.com/2011/12/goldman-sachs-hive-consciousness.html (to see hyperlinks in article)

VIDEO: link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpg76VjTa58 How to take advantage of a slump if you've got dollars to begin with, and oh yes, Goldman Sachs rules the world.

Trader Alessio Rastani explains how Goldman Sachs rule the world, not the governments. He explains how the Eurozone crash will wipe out the savings of millions.

Here's another video link

that provides

the names of current key banking figures and country leaders who came out of Goldman Sachs. Forget the Freemasonry stuff - it doesn't matter that these guys like to wear white gloves and cross-dress in silly aprons with roses on them to bond with other males, most of whom have alcohol problems and don't have a clue what their most wealthy members are up to - and just pay attention to the fact that this is a financial corporation that has trained and sent out disciples everywhere to manipulate global markets.

If you read French, a European journalists' club article offers more details. If you don't, here's a Google translation.

The current Governor of the Bank of Canada, Mark Carney, is a Goldman Sachs disciple, and has of course had his way smoothed by establishment publications like Time Magazine and the blatantly conservative Reader's Digest who named him "Most Trusted Canadian" just in case you had any doubts.

Readers Digest, by the way, is now owned by Ripplewood Holdings founded by Tim Collins, a Bilderberg darling, as is Stephen Harper and other Canadians (Last year, the meeting was in Greece. Now, Greece is burning). At least one Goldman Sachs representative is on the Steering Cttee of the Bilderberg group.

Carney is also the new Chair of the Financial Stability Board (FSB) in charge of global financial institutions, his predecessor having been Mario Draghi, now president of the European Central Bank, and a former Goldman Sachs Vice Chair and Managing Director. Draghi is also a fellow of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard from which Michael Ignatieff was dispatched to destroy Canada's federal Liberal Party.

These guys, no matter what their nationality, mostly studied at Yale, Oxford, Princeton, Harvard or a combination. It's an incestuous club at the helm. There oughta be a law, eh? Yet despite (or because of) the collective wisdom of their hive minds* and hands-on ministration, things are not looking good:

Wealth gap hits 30-year high

"The social contract is starting to unravel in many countries," Gurría said. "This study dispels the assumptions that the benefits of economic growth will automatically trickle down to the disadvantaged and that greater inequality fosters greater social mobility."

Canada is predicted to fare no better than anywhere else. But nevermind, there's always a pollster to ask the Right questions and show that Canadians are generally pleased with the way things are going. The spokesman for Nanos Research drops a strong hint of a probable highly suggestive preamble to his company's questionnaire: "The fact that Canada has the strongest economic performance of any G7 country would not have gone unnoticed by Canadians"

People are being led to think that it's Canada making an impact on the world, when really it's Goldman Sachs.

Sane people screen their phone calls to avoid market surveys and sales pitches, so it's not difficult to guess the overall acuity of the respondents to assess doublespeak. Speaking of same, take a look at Harper on the subject of global governance and Canadian sovereignty (video).

Say, why do you suppose Harper is learning to speak Spanish? Once the North American Union becomes obvious to all, will he be rewarded by being appointed Governor of the new Bank of North America?

* One indication of their loss of individuality is in the way they all dress in dark suits, shiny dark shoes, white shirts and red or blue ties - and the people they kill off don't.

media coverup VVVVVVVVVVVV0000VVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

link

Edited December 6, 2011 by Steven Gaal

[Len Colby]

That’s right Goldman Sachs is scheming to take over the world (obviously using the game plan in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion!*). Why am I not surprised the villain of Gaal’s latest paranoid CT is the only Jewish run major financial firm? Not surprisingly the author of the first article used a pseudonym and Rockwell revealed his extreme political bias with his comment that, “Germany has been pushed into an European Union that intends to destroy the political sovereignty of the member governments, just as Abe Lincoln destroyed the sovereignty of the American states”.

The most contentious claims are unsourced. The only thing remotely resembling solid evidence is a list of European leaders who were associated with the firm. But only four of them currently are in positions of power and their connections with Goldman are often tenuous:

- Mario Monti Italy’s new PM and Finance Minister – Among numerous positions held over his long career was an advisor to GS (as well as Coca-Cola) at the time of his nomination.

- “Mario Draghi, who took over as President of the ECB on 1 November…[was] managing director of Goldman Sachs International between 2002 and 2005”

- Lucas Papademos PM Greece – Never worked or consulted for Goldman but was head of the Bank of Greece (Central Bank) when it “Goldman channelled [sic] $1bn of funding to the Greek government in 2002”

- Petros Christodoulou director general of Greece's Public Debt Management Agency “[began] his career at Goldman” but apparently hasn’t worked there for almost 20 years since then he has worked for Credit Suisse, JP Morgan, National P & K Securities, the National Bank of Greece, Bank of Greece and other government agencies and got a Masters from Columbia.

The Euro is the currency of 17 countries which there are total of about 65 PMs, finance ministers, central bank presidents and Public Debt Management Agency director generals and a list including other key national officials, ones from the 10 EU countries that don’t use the Euro and trans-EU/Eurozone officials would have even more names on it. Three of them had some sort of tie to Goldman and another negotiated a deal with them. Two are from Greece a relatively minor with a GDP 1/7 – 1/11 that of Italy, France and Germany. Presumably a similar number of men and women with similar ties to other financial firms hold such positions.

As for Alessio Rastani, Gaal or anyone else impressed by his pronouncements should Google his name, he not any expert in anything other than self-promotion.

* Lest Gaal have a conniption AFAIK he never cited the Protocols or sources that did, this comment was meant to be ironic.

Edited December 7, 2011 by Len Colby

[Steven Gaal]

That’s right Goldman Sachs is scheming to take over the world (obviously using the game plan in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion!*). Why am I not surprised the villain of Gaal’s latest paranoid CT is the only Jewish run major financial firm? Not surprisingly the author of the first article used a pseudonym and Rockwell revealed his extreme political bias with his comment that, “Germany has been pushed into an European Union that intends to destroy the political sovereignty of the member governments, just as Abe Lincoln destroyed the sovereignty of the American states”.

The most contentious claims are unsourced. The only thing remotely resembling solid evidence is a list of European leaders who were associated with the firm. But only four of them currently are in positions of power and their connections with Goldman are often tenuous:

- Mario Monti Italy’s new PM and Finance Minister – Among numerous positions held over his long career was an advisor to GS (as well as Coca-Cola) at the time of his nomination.

- “Mario Draghi, who took over as President of the ECB on 1 November…[was] managing director of Goldman Sachs International between 2002 and 2005”

- Lucas Papademos PM Greece – Never worked or consulted for Goldman but was head of the Bank of Greece (Central Bank) when it “Goldman channelled [sic] $1bn of funding to the Greek government in 2002”

- Petros Christodoulou director general of Greece's Public Debt Management Agency “[began] his career at Goldman” but apparently hasn’t worked there for almost 20 years since then he has worked for Credit Suisse, JP Morgan, National P & K Securities, the National Bank of Greece, Bank of Greece and other government agencies and got a Masters from Columbia.

The Euro is the currency of 17 countries which there are total of about 65 PMs, finance ministers, central bank presidents and Public Debt Management Agency director generals and a list including other key national officials, ones from the 10 EU countries that don’t use the Euro and trans-EU/Eurozone officials would have even more names on it. Three of them had some sort of tie to Goldman and another negotiated a deal with them. Two are from Greece a relatively minor with a GDP 1/7 – 1/11 that of Italy, France and Germany. Presumably a similar number of men and women with similar ties to other financial firms hold such positions.

As for Alessio Rastani, Gaal or anyone else impressed by his pronouncements should Google his name, he not any expert in anything other than self-promotion.

* Lest Gaal have a conniption AFAIK he never cited the Protocols or sources that did, this comment was meant to be ironic.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Why am I not surprised the villain of MATT TAIBBI latest paranoid CT is the only Jewish run major financial firm?

What's past is prologue

Although the phrase is now commonly used to mean what's stated above, as the phrase was originally used in The Tempest, Act 2, Scene I, it means that all that has happened before that time, the "past," has led Antonio and Sebastian to this opportunity to do what they are about to do, commit murder. In the context of the preceding and next lines, "(And by that destiny) to perform an act, Whereof what's past is prologue; what to come, In yours and my discharge" Antonio is in essence rationalizing to Sebastian, and the audience, that he and Sebastian are fated to act by all that has led up to that moment, the past has set the stage for their next act, as a prologue does in a play. Therefore, this phrase might be better used in situations where people are attempting to rationalize wicked acts based on the past. It can also be taken to mean that everything up until now has merely set the stage for Antonio and Sebastian to make their own destinies; in this context it does not indicate that their future acts are fated, but rather that everything up to that point was merely like a prologue, not the important story.

THE PAST.......................... in Rolling Stone magazine. One of the best comprehensive profiles of Government Sachs done to date. Speaking of GS, they sure must be busy today, now that Bernanke is about to be impeached and take the fall for all their machinations.

GREAT ARTICLE BY MATT TAIBBI

link http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-great-american-bubble-machine-20100405

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++========================++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

THE IMPORTANT NOW.............

link http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-people-vs-goldman-sachs-20110511

link http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/is-the-sec-covering-up-wall-street-crimes-20110817

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo*

Goldman Sachs political influence in EU growing

Mario Monti (Italy) is just the latest politician with ties to Goldman Sachs. There are also Karel van Miert (Belgium), Otmar Issing (Germany), Mario Draghi (EU Central Bank), Petros Christodoulou (Greece), Lucas Papadernos (Greece), Antonio Borges (France), Peter Sutherland (Ireland). Read more in the following article:

link http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/what-price-the-new-democracy-goldman-sachs-conquers-europe-6264091.html

Edited December 8, 2011 by Steven Gaal

[Len Colby]

Why am I not surprised the villain of MATT TAIBBI latest paranoid CT is the only Jewish run major financial firm?

I normally agree with Taibbi but I don’t unquestioningly accept everything he says. You do know he is fervently anti-truther, don’t you? He cited few sources to support his claims about GS. In at least one case when he did he exaggerated the extent to which it supported his theory. Yes there was a chapter entitled John Kenneth Galbraith’s The Great Crash, 1929 titled "In Goldman Sachs We Trust," but only 5 of its 22 pages deal with the company. The notion that the famed economist blamed Goldman any more than other major firms seems to be an exaggeration. Likewise Taibbi produce little if any evidence they involved in any of the other “bubbles” more than other firms. But there’s a major difference between Taibbi and you he doesn’t direct an inordinate amount of attention to real or imagined villains from one specific ethic, racial or religious group.

Mario Monti (Italy) is just the latest politician with ties to Goldman Sachs. There are also Karel van Miert (Belgium), Otmar Issing (Germany), Mario Draghi (EU Central Bank), Petros Christodoulou (Greece), Lucas Papadernos (Greece), Antonio Borges (France), Peter Sutherland (Ireland). Read more in the following article:

I already addressed the article in my previous post it only cited three men who currently hold positions of power who worked for GS:

Karel van Miert – dead, his obit in the same paper labeled him the “Eurocrat who took on big business as Competition Commissioner” and indicated “When he left the Commission he joined the boards of 15 organisations across 10 industries, among them Anglo-American plc, Philips Lighting BV, Vivendi Universal, RWE, Agfa-Gevaert NV, and Goldman Sachs”. So GS was one of 15 companies whose boards he sat on AFTER holding a position of power.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/karel-van-miert-eurocrat-who-took-on-big-business-as-competition-commissioner-1743574.html

Otmar Issing – Like van Miert he worked for numerous agencies and institutions over a long career and only started working for GS after serving in key positions

https://www.ifk-cfs.de/fileadmin/downloads/Staff/President/20111021_CV_Issing_englisch.pdf?PHPSESSID=62864c2f957fdeff9d65cc3bc4fab3b5

Mario Draghi – see previous post

Petros Christodoulou - see previous post

Lucas Papadernos – never worked for GS, see previous post

Antonio Borges (France) – uuh Portugal, but hey its hard to keep those Asian countries straight. EX-Director of the European Department of the International Monetary Fund, spent 8 years at GS serving as “Vice Chairman” of its international division. In addition to serving as a university professor and dean and working various government agencies:

He was a board member of Citibank Portugal, Petrogal-Petroleos de Portugal, Vista Alegre Group, Paribas, Sonae and Cimpor-Cimentos de Portugal. He is currently on the Boards of Jerónimo Martins and Sonae.com and is a member of the Supervisory Board of CNP Assurances. He chairs the Audit Committees of Banco Santander Portugal and Banco Santander de Negocios Portugal. He is on the Advisory Boards of several European and US corporations and foundations and is Chairman of the European Corporate Governance Institute.

http://www.ecgi.org/members_directory/member.php?member_id=5

Peter Sutherland – “Attorney General of Ireland in the 1980s and another former EU Competition Commissioner” was also involve in the WTO in the 1990s and served as its Director-General and “Chairman of the Advisory Council to the Director General of the World Trade Organisation that produced the Report on the Future of the World Trade Organisation published in 2005”.

GS is hardly the only company is/was involved with and he only seems to have joined its board AFTER his government service. “He is non-executive Chairman of Goldman Sachs International (a registered UK broker-dealer, a subsidiary of Goldman Sachs). Until June 2009 he was non-executive chairman of BP being replaced by Carl-Henric Svanberg formely chief executive officer of Ericsson. Sutherland was a director of the Royal Bank of Scotland Group until he was asked to leave the board when it had to be taken over by the UK government to avoid bankruptcy. He also formerly served on the board of ABB.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/what-price-the-new-democracy-goldman-sachs-conquers-europe-6264091.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Sutherland#Attorney_General_and_politics

[Steven Gaal]

Why am I not surprised the villain of MATT TAIBBI latest paranoid CT is the only Jewish run major financial firm?

I normally agree with Taibbi but I don’t unquestioningly accept everything he says. You do know he is fervently anti-truther, don’t you? He cited few sources to support his claims about GS. In at least one case when he did he exaggerated the extent to which it supported his theory. Yes there was a chapter entitled John Kenneth Galbraith’s The Great Crash, 1929 titled "In Goldman Sachs We Trust," but only 5 of its 22 pages deal with the company. The notion that the famed economist blamed Goldman any more than other major firms seems to be an exaggeration. Likewise Taibbi produce little if any evidence they involved in any of the other “bubbles” more than other firms. But there’s a major difference between Taibbi and you he doesn’t direct an inordinate amount of attention to real or imagined villains from one specific ethic, racial or religious group.

Mario Monti (Italy) is just the latest politician with ties to Goldman Sachs. There are also Karel van Miert (Belgium), Otmar Issing (Germany), Mario Draghi (EU Central Bank), Petros Christodoulou (Greece), Lucas Papadernos (Greece), Antonio Borges (France), Peter Sutherland (Ireland). Read more in the following article:

I already addressed the article in my previous post it only cited three men who currently hold positions of power who worked for GS:

Karel van Miert – dead, his obit in the same paper labeled him the “Eurocrat who took on big business as Competition Commissioner” and indicated “When he left the Commission he joined the boards of 15 organisations across 10 industries, among them Anglo-American plc, Philips Lighting BV, Vivendi Universal, RWE, Agfa-Gevaert NV, and Goldman Sachs”. So GS was one of 15 companies whose boards he sat on AFTER holding a position of power.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/karel-van-miert-eurocrat-who-took-on-big-business-as-competition-commissioner-1743574.html

Otmar Issing – Like van Miert he worked for numerous agencies and institutions over a long career and only started working for GS after serving in key positions

https://www.ifk-cfs.de/fileadmin/downloads/Staff/President/20111021_CV_Issing_englisch.pdf?PHPSESSID=62864c2f957fdeff9d65cc3bc4fab3b5

Mario Draghi – see previous post

Petros Christodoulou - see previous post

Lucas Papadernos – never worked for GS, see previous post

Antonio Borges (France) – uuh Portugal, but hey its hard to keep those Asian countries straight. EX-Director of the European Department of the International Monetary Fund, spent 8 years at GS serving as “Vice Chairman” of its international division. In addition to serving as a university professor and dean and working various government agencies:

He was a board member of Citibank Portugal, Petrogal-Petroleos de Portugal, Vista Alegre Group, Paribas, Sonae and Cimpor-Cimentos de Portugal. He is currently on the Boards of Jerónimo Martins and Sonae.com and is a member of the Supervisory Board of CNP Assurances. He chairs the Audit Committees of Banco Santander Portugal and Banco Santander de Negocios Portugal. He is on the Advisory Boards of several European and US corporations and foundations and is Chairman of the European Corporate Governance Institute.

http://www.ecgi.org/members_directory/member.php?member_id=5

Peter Sutherland – “Attorney General of Ireland in the 1980s and another former EU Competition Commissioner” was also involve in the WTO in the 1990s and served as its Director-General and “Chairman of the Advisory Council to the Director General of the World Trade Organisation that produced the Report on the Future of the World Trade Organisation published in 2005”.

GS is hardly the only company is/was involved with and he only seems to have joined its board AFTER his government service. “He is non-executive Chairman of Goldman Sachs International (a registered UK broker-dealer, a subsidiary of Goldman Sachs). Until June 2009 he was non-executive chairman of BP being replaced by Carl-Henric Svanberg formely chief executive officer of Ericsson. Sutherland was a director of the Royal Bank of Scotland Group until he was asked to leave the board when it had to be taken over by the UK government to avoid bankruptcy. He also formerly served on the board of ABB.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/what-price-the-new-democracy-goldman-sachs-conquers-europe-6264091.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Sutherland#Attorney_General_and_politics

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVOoOVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

This man speaks of Brazil "castration" years ago...NOW EU castration led by....

The Goldman Saching of Europe

Mike Carey

I don't want to sound alarmist but it looks like Goldman Sachs has taken over Europe. The continent has succumbed to the dictates of global finance, there was no choice. The bankers are holding us all to ransom and have done since the beginning of the GFC in 2008.

The German government's reaction to its disastrous bond auction a week or so ago, gives a big clue to the real multibillion dollar game being played out in boardrooms from New York to Frankfurt. The most powerful and resilient economy in Europe couldn't get a bid for 35% of its 10 year bonds on offer. Observers say it was a warning from bankers, on both sides of the Atlantic, do as we say or else!

Germany, through its Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, had been at the forefront demanding that banks share any sovereign bailout losses that eventuate from the European Stability Mechanism, to be up and running next year. The failed German bond auction was the bank's curt reply and Schaeuble backed down.

Right from the start of the European crisis, the banks have been pulling the strings. Remember when the former Greek Prime Minister, George Papandreou announced a plebiscite, to get popular buy-in for his austerity plan and the markets went bananas and he was excoriated. The markets and the banks, not the Greek people, passed judgement and he had to go.

Across the Ionian Sea, former Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi hadn't done enough to satisfy the self-serving screen jockeys and they turned their weapons, their bond traders, lap dog ratings agencies and share market speculators on Italy. Berlusconi was rumoured to be resigning and the bourse rallied. No, he wasn't going and it fell away again with a promise that it would rocket when he finally and inevitably bowed to massive financial pressure to resign. As night follows day, he was replaced by a euphemism, a technocrat. Nowhere was there much talk about voter's wishes or rights.

All this might have been ameliorated if not avoided had the Obama Administration brought the bankers to heel three years ago by jailing a dozen or so, now it's too late! But of course that was never going to happen when the President's own economic team was drawn from or had strong links with Goldman Sachs. With Summers, Rubin, Geithner and Emanuel it was Wall St. on the Potomac.

That's probably why, in 2008, Goldman Sachs was too big to prosecute. It received more subsidies and bailout funds than any other investment bank. How did Goldman Sachs thank the American people for their largesse? By using billions in taxpayer money to enrich itself and reward its top executives who received, it's reported, mind boggling wage increases and bonuses of $18 billion in 2009, $16 billion in 2010 and $10 billion in 2011.

At the same time, Goldman Sachs offloaded billions in worthless securities helping destroy the global economy. The firm misled investors about the true nature of this worthless junk and hid the fact that it was betting against these same securities. In just one such deal Goldman Sachs is reported to have raked in $2 billion.

Scroll back to 2002. Goldman Sachs covertly bought 2.3 billion Euros in Greek debt, converted it into yen and dollars, and then immediately sold it back to Greece at a supposed loss. Goldman Sachs had struck a secret deal with the then, free-market government to conceal its massive budget deficit. Goldman's confected loss was Greece's imaginary gain just to meet Europe's requirement that its deficit never surpass 3 % of GDP. Now, it's reported that Goldman made a $250 million fee on the deal and a motza on credit default swap insurance sold to Greek bond holders against the country going bust.

Apparently this only became known to Prime Minister, George Papandreou and his Socialist government when they came into office and investors demanded monster interest rates to lend more money to roll over this debt.

So who is going to save Europe, and by extension us?

The new president of the European Central Bank (ECB), Mario Draghi knows the turf well. He was after all, the London based Vice Chairman and Managing Director of Goldman Sachs International and a member of Goldman Sachs' Management Committee. Fronting the European Parliament's finance committee, he was quick to point out that between 2002 and 2005 his role did not involve selling financial instruments but was largely advisory.

Mario Draghi has also held board level positions or higher at the World Bank, the Bank of Italy, the Bank for International Settlements, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the Asian Development Bank.

He has emphasized many times that it's not the ECB's role to act as lender of last resort to countries but Draghi is perfectly happy to promise banks unlimited liquidity. While everybody was urging him to buy government bonds to steady the ship he stressed the ECB's bond buying would be limited and temporary. Indeed anything else would be illegal under European law. According to the November 28th Wall Street Journal, "The ECB has long worried that buying government bonds in big enough amounts to bring down countries' borrowing costs would make it easier for national politicians to delay the budget austerity and economic overhauls that are needed."

So take your medicine, suckers!

Mario Monti, Italy's new prime minister was appointed by the markets, not elected by the people. And guess what? Before that he was a member of Goldman Sachs Board of International Advisers and a member of the European Commission, one of the EU's governing organizations. Monti is European Chairman of the Trilateral Commission, a US organization that advances American interests and a founding member of the Spinelli group created to foster EU integration.

In Greece, an unelected banker was installed as a newly minted Prime Minister there too.

From 1994 to 2002, Lucas Papademos was Governor of the Bank of Greece at the time Goldman Sachs was helping camouflage the country's deficit. If he didn't know what was going on, he should have. From 2002-2010, he was Vice President of the European Central Bank and is also a member of America's Trilateral Commission.

And while the PM was not employed by Goldman Sachs, the Chairman of Greece's Public Debt Management Agency, Petros Christodoulos, was a trader in the bank's London operation.

Everybody agrees that the simplest remedy for Europe's woes would be for the ECB to buy enough Spanish and Italian debt to keep interest rates at a reasonable level. ECB President Draghi refuses to move until, observers say, the crisis is so bad he can impose the sort of package that would gladden the heart of any true neo-liberal. Public assets privatized, unions subjugated, social safety nets rent and sovereignty surrendered to unelected technocrats. On Thursday, Mario Draghi presaged this attack on Europe's social democracy by calling for a "new fiscal compact" and now President Nicolas Sarkozy of France and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany have dutifully moved to re-shape the treaty governing the continent's economic governance.

I saw this belt tightening austerity in the eighties as the IMF dictated to Brazil what it should cut to repay its debt to a consortium of US and European banks and the World Bank. It took years of pain for the powerhouse of Latin America to recover from this economic castration. Last week I heard a financial commentator describe the current situation as the market picking off the weakest prey as each of the PIIGS countries come under sustained attack. The predatory nature of the beast may see austerity plans introduced, European banks bailed out but still we are likely to end with the Second Great Depression, we had to have. Had to have? There is no other way now to cleanse the system, to throw the money lenders out of the temple.

Mike Carey is a Walkley Award-winning journalist and producer who was executive producer of SBS Dateline for eight years. He has worked for the ABC, SBS and Al Jazeera living in South-East Asia and Brazil.

[Len Colby]

An obscure freelance journalist who failed to cite any sources, repeating the claims from your previous articles does strengthen them. Especially when he doesn’t have his facts straight. He wrote, “But of course that was never going to happen when the President's own economic team was drawn from or had strong links with Goldman Sachs. With Summers, Rubin, Geithner and Emanuel it was Wall St. on the Potomac.” Except that of the four only Rubin had worked on Wall Street and had ties with GS. Emanuel worked for an investment bank but in its Chicago office then severed in the Clinton administration before getting elected to congress. Summers and Geithner spent their careers in academia and government service.

[Steven Gaal]

An obscure freelance journalist who failed to cite any sources, repeating the claims from your previous articles does strengthen them. Especially when he doesn’t have his facts straight. He wrote, “But of course that was never going to happen when the President's own economic team was drawn from or had strong links with Goldman Sachs. With Summers, Rubin, Geithner and Emanuel it was Wall St. on the Potomac.” Except that of the four only Rubin had worked on Wall Street and had ties with GS. Emanuel worked for an investment bank but in its Chicago office then severed in the Clinton administration before getting elected to congress. Summers and Geithner spent their careers in academia and government service.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXVVVVVVVVOOOOOOOOVVVVVVVVXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Samuel Clemens , An obscure freelance journalist.

Mike Carey is a Walkley Award-winning journalist

Golly, some cite again and again about award winning journalists...who could that be ??? Who ??

---------------------------------------------------------

link http://www.salon.com/2009/04/04/summers/

Lawrence H. Summers, one of President Obama’s top economic advisers, collected roughly $5.2 million in compensation from hedge fund D.E. Shaw over the past year and was paid more than $2.7 million in speaking fees by several troubled Wall Street firms and other organizations. . . .

Financial institutions including JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch paid Summers for speaking appearances in 2008. Fees ranged from $45,000 for a Nov. 12 Merrill Lynch appearance to $135,000 for an April 16 visit to Goldman Sachs, according to his disclosure form.

Last night, former Reagan-era S&L regulator and current University of Missouri Professor Bill Black was on Bill Moyers’ Journal and detailed the magnitude of what he called the on-going massive fraud, the role Tim Geithner played in it before being promoted to Treasury Secretary (where he continues to abet it), and — most amazingly of all — the crusade led by Alan Greenspan, former Goldman CEO Robert Rubin (Geithner’s mentor) and Larry Summers in the late 1990s to block the efforts of top regulators (especially Brooksley Born, head of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission) to regulate the exact financial derivatives market that became the principal cause of the global financial crisis. To get a sense for how deep and massive is the on-going fraud and the key role played in it by key Obama officials, I highly recommend watching that Black interview (it can be seen here and the transcript is here).

link http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/24/us/politics/24rubin.html (mentor)

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZVVVVVVVVVVVVVVoVVVVVVVVVVVVVVZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Huffington Post: Geithner and Goldman, Thick as Thieves

link http://www.imackgroup.com/mathematics/633648-huffington-post-geithner-and-goldman-thick-as-thieves/

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXVVVVVVVVXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

++++++++++++++++++++++++++o+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Rahm Emanuel’s Ties To Goldman Sachs

link http://sweetness-light.com/archive/rahm-emanuels-ties-to-goldman-sachs

Given Mr. Obama’s remarks about bonuses to Goldman Sachs and other banks, as reported by Bloomberg last week:

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, second from left, and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, second from right, listen as President Barack Obama delivers his State of the Union address on Capitol Hill Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2010, in Washington.

Obama Doesn’t ‘Begrudge’ Bonuses for Blankfein, Dimon

By Julianna Goldman and Ian Katz

Feb. 10 (Bloomberg) — "President Barack Obama said he doesn’t ‘begrudge’ the $17 million bonus awarded to JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon or the $9 million issued to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. CEO Lloyd Blankfein, noting that some athletes take home more pay. The president, speaking in an interview, said in response to a question that while $17 million is ‘an extraordinary amount of money’ for Main Street, ‘there are some baseball players who are making more than that and don’t get to the World Series either, so I’m shocked by that as well.’

‘I know both those guys; they are very savvy businessmen,’ Obama said in the interview yesterday in the Oval Office with Bloomberg BusinessWeek, which will appear on newsstands Friday. ‘I, like most of the American people, don’t begrudge people success or wealth. That is part of the free-market system." …

We thought it might be instructive to revisit this Washington Examiner column from right after Mr. Obama’s selection of his chief of staff:

Goldman Sachs Will Be Sitting Pretty With Emanuel in the Obama White House

By: Timothy P. Carney

November 21, 2008

Goldman Sachs always has clout in Washington, as evidenced by the firm’s alumni serving as Treasury secretaries under both Presidents Bush and Clinton. Today, in these tumultuous times of bailouts and meltdowns when the investment banking leviathan needs Washington more than ever before, Goldman can leverage its most valuable asset yet—incoming White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel.

Goldman Sachs is the giant of Wall Street, and more than any other investment bank, Goldman is surviving the current financial storm. Traditionally a Democratic booster, and one of Barack Obama’s top sources of funds in this past election, Goldman has always had some particularly strong allies within government. Emanuel is one such ally.

An interesting early chapter in the Goldman-Emanuel relationship took place in the setting of Bill Clinton’s campaign for the White House in 1992. Clinton hired Emanuel as his chief fundraiser.

At the same time, however, Emanuel was on the payroll of Goldman Sachs, receiving $3,000 per month from the firm to “introduce us to people,” in the words of one Goldman partner at the time. This is certainly a noteworthy relationship, but it’s one that has almost entirely escaped scrutiny.

Corporations and partnerships are and were at the time prohibited by law from contributing to federal candidates out of the corporate coffers. So, while Rahm tapped Goldman employees personally for six figures in gifts to Clinton’s candidacy—more than any other firm—Goldman, as a company, was helping keep Clinton’s top fundraiser well-fed.

When you look at the explanations Goldman and Emanuel gave for Emanuel’s employment—he was advising on “local political races” or “introduc[ing] us to people”—it’s easy to suspect that Goldman was using firm money to fund the Clinton campaign by paying the campaign’s top fundraiser for nebulous “consulting” work—all while the campaign was in debt and delaying paychecks to campaign staff.

You can run a campaign on the cheap if you can get big corporations to pay some of your staff’s salary for you. This isn’t a far-fetched theory, especially considering the slew of fundraising irregularities the Federal Election Commission noted in Emanuel’s fundraising efforts for Clinton.

A Washington Post article from the era reports that FEC auditors “found that nine companies or individuals, including Goldman Sachs & Co.—where Clinton fund-raisers and officials Robert E. Rubin and Kenneth D. Brody worked … were paid $246,162 by the primary committee for work at discounted rates. Normally, companies have to charge campaigns the same rates they would other customers.”

So, Goldman may have been funneling money to Clinton’s campaign through the back door (Emanuel’s retainer and those discounts the FEC noted), and the front door. By March of 1992, the heart of that dramatic primary season, Goldman partners had sent $54,000 to the Clinton campaign.

They would contribute another $50,000, making the firm the top source of funds for Clinton’s election, and contemporaneous media credit Emanuel, together with Robert Rubin, with this tight relationship.

In his four terms in Congress, Emanuel has raised $74,750 from Goldman, making the firm his number four source of funds. Goldman has helped Emanuel. How has Emanuel helped Goldman?

The most obvious answer, as mentioned in this column two weeks ago, is in Emanuel’s lead role in shepherding the “$700 billion” bailout—first proposed by former a Goldman CEO, Bush Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson—through the skeptical House.

Of course, back in the Clinton days, Goldman benefited from NAFTA and the bailout of the Mexican currency, with Emanuel pushing NAFTA through Congress, and Rubin hammering out the peso bailout.

Did Goldman improperly funnel money to the Clinton campaign by subsidizing Emanuel’s salary in 1992? Did Goldman’s help to Clinton spur the Democratic president to push NAFTA and the Mexican bailout?

The answers to these questions are opaque, and with Emanuel burrowed deep within the Obama White House, the continued relationship between Goldman Sachs and Obama’s right hand man won’t be easy to follow.

Watch which regulations of Wall Street Obama fights for. Watch where the bailout money goes. And don’t be surprised Goldman soon sitting pretty once again.

Examiner columnist Timothy P. Carney is editor of the Evans-Novak Political Report. His Examiner column appears on Fridays.

Just a bit of context for the next time we see Mr. Obama’s feigned outrage about ‘fat cat’ bankers.

Edited December 9, 2011 by Steven Gaal

[Len Colby]

LOL so the best you can come up with tying Emmanuel to Goldman is that the latter supposedly paid the former “$3,000 per month” almost 20 years ago and later supposedly donated $74,750 to the then multi-millionaire’s campaign fund over the course of four elections You failed to show Geitner had any actual ties to the firm and the nest you can turn up for Summers is that they supposedly paid the multimillionaire a $135,000 speaker’s fee.

[Douglas Caddy]

[Steven Gaal]

LOL so the best you can come up with tying Emmanuel to Goldman is that the latter supposedly paid the former “$3,000 per month” almost 20 years ago and later supposedly donated $74,750 to the then multi-millionaire’s campaign fund over the course of four elections You failed to show Geitner had any actual ties to the firm and the nest you can turn up for Summers is that they supposedly paid the multimillionaire a $135,000 speaker’s fee.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Point one) Emmanuel 18 years ago 3,000 is a larger amount,also they were famous for getting a high return on their investments,thus he probably invested some of this cash with them,last he was a smaller political connected fish in the big pond of politics.Goldman Sachs could give him better,bigger political connections then he had at the time., Adding up these three reasons I think he felt a close "I'll wash yours, if you wash mine with" Goldman Sachs.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Point two) Geithner

Geithner and Goldman, Thick as Thieves

Posted on May 31, 2011

By Robert Scheer

What was Timothy Geithner thinking back in 2008 when, as president of the New York Fed, he decided to give Goldman Sachs a $30 billion interest-free loan as part of an $80 billion secret float to favored banks? The sordid details of that program were finally made public this week in response to a court order for a Freedom of Information Act release, thanks to a Bloomberg News lawsuit. Sorry, my bad: It wasn’t an interest-free loan; make that .01 percent that Goldman paid to borrow taxpayer money when ordinary folks who missed a few credit card payments in order to finance their mortgages were being slapped with interest rates of more than 25 percent.

One wonders if Barack Obama was fully aware of Geithner’s deceitful performance at the New York Fed when he appointed him treasury secretary in the incoming administration. The president was probably ignorant of this particular giveaway, as were key members of Congress. “I wasn’t aware of this program until now,” Barney Frank, D-Mass., who at the time chaired the House Financial Services Committee, admitted in referring to Geithner’s “single-tranche open-market operations” program. And there was no language in the Dodd-Frank law supposedly reining in the banks that compelled the Fed to reveal the existence of this program.

It was merely one small part of that reckless policy of throwing mad money at the banks while ignoring the plight of homeowners whom the banks had swindled, a plan pursued by both the Bush and the Obama administrations that set the stage for the current slide into a double-dip recession. On Tuesday it was reported that home values have continued an eight-month decline back to their lowest point since the recession began. With housing in deep trouble there can be no rebound of consumer confidence or job creation, and the first-quarter growth rate was an anemic 1.8 percent even as Wall Street profits and bonuses flourished. Wages are stagnant, unemployment claims have recently risen and, as The Wall Street Journal headlined on Tuesday, “Economists Downgrade Prospects for Growth.” That same edition of the Journal reported that 44.6 million Americans now survive on food stamps, an 11 percent increase in that misery index over the past year, while Geithner’s friends at Goldman are doing quite well.

Actually, Goldman wasn’t even a bank and was therefore ineligible for those massive government handouts until Geithner helped gain approval for the instant conversion of Goldman from an investment house to a commercial bank. Goldman was granted that status, and with it access to the Fed’s lending, soon after the privilege had been denied to the fellow investment bank Lehman Brothers (the $30 billion mentioned above was in addition to the $43.5 billion Goldman borrowed from other Fed programs). Although Lehman was allowed to go belly up, Geithner engineered the massive bailout of AIG, a move that turned out to be a cover for passing money to AIG’s clients, including the aforementioned Goldman Sachs. The man’s intentions were clear, even if all the secret details were not, when Obama picked him to be his point man in salvaging an economy that Geithner had done much to wreck.

Geithner’s priorities were all too obvious from his days in the Clinton administration’s Treasury Department when he worked first under former Goldman honcho Robert Rubin and then Lawrence Summers, who took six-figure speaking fees from Goldman and other banks while he was an adviser to candidate Obama. It was the recommendation of Rubin and Summers that landed Geithner the job as president of the New York Fed, where he faithfully followed the policy lead of Goldman-CEO-turned-Treasury-Secretary Henry Paulson.

It was back then and is now accurate to speak, as a New York Times headline once put it, of U.S. politics dominated by “The Guys From ‘Government Sachs’ ”—but on an international scale. From the crisis in Greece, where Goldman manufactured toxic tax-based derivatives with abandon, to its betting against the success of the mortgage-based derivatives that Goldman designed and sold to others, the company was nothing short of a massive wrecking ball in the international economy.

Oh yes, what did Goldman do with that taxpayer money it borrowed back in 2008? It needed the money to cover the lousy bets of its Fixed Income, Currencies and Commodities trading unit, which had lost $320 million. Typical of the Goldman dealings in that arena was the $1.3 billion solicited from Col. Moammar Gadhafi’s Libya sovereign wealth fund, which according to a report in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal lost 98 percent of its value and almost cost some Goldman executives doing business in Tripoli their lives.

But they survived, as the guys from Goldman always do. With the general “no banker left behind” program pursued by Geithner under both George W. Bush and Obama, the theory was that saving the banks would save the country. The first part worked out brilliantly, but the second act never occurred

=======================================oooooooo=============================================

Let's Not Forget about the NY Fed Connection and Goldman Sachs

=====

TheCenterLane often covers Wall Street Mafia issues

Somebody really loves Goldman Sachs:

The recent article about Treasury Secretary "Turbo" Tim Geithner by Jo Becker and Gretchen Morgenson, appearing in the April 26 edition of The New York Times, seems to have helped fan the flames of the current outrage concerning the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Turbo Tim was president of the New York Fed during the five years prior to his appointment as Treasury Secretary. Becker and Morgenson pointed out many of the ways in which "conflict of interest" seems to be one of the cornerstones of that institution:

The New York Fed is, by custom and design, clubby and opaque. It is charged with curbing banks' risky impulses, yet its president is selected by and reports to a board dominated by the chief executives of some of those same banks. Traditionally, the New York Fed president's intelligence-gathering role has involved routine consultation with financiers, though Mr. Geithner's recent predecessors generally did not meet with them unless senior aides were also present, according to the bank's former general counsel.

By those standards, Mr. Geithner's reliance on bankers, hedge fund managers and others to assess the market's health -- and provide guidance once it faltered -- stood out.

The New York Fed is probably the most important of the nation's twelve Federal Reserve Banks, since its jurisdiction includes the heart of America's financial industry. As the Times piece pointed out, this resulted in the same type of "revolving door" opportunities as those enjoyed by members of Congress who became lobbyists and vice versa:

A revolving door has long connected Wall Street and the New York Fed. Mr. Geithner's predecessors, E. Gerald Corrigan and William J. McDonough, wound up as investment-bank executives. The current president, William C. Dudley, came from Goldman Sachs.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Point 3) Obama connections

Heather Horn 25 Apr 21, 2010

--------------------

Conservatives opposed to Democratic proposals for financial reform have expressed some skepticism regarding the new SEC suit against Goldman Sachs. The timing just looks too perfect--guaranteed to whip up populist sentiment ahead of financial reform debates. Now, in a slight shift of strategy, Obama's critics are pointing to another peculiarity of Democrats' embrace of anti-Wall Street sentiment: the administration is rife with Goldman Sachs connections.

Both Parties Are Deep in Wall Street Money "Both parties have attempted to warn the American people about the other side's long-standing affiar with Wall Street," notes Reason's Peter Suderman. "Which side has been seduced the most fully, the most often? Who cares? It's a threesome." That's his take on a Daily Caller article on Wall Street money in Washington.

Goldman Employees Gave to Obama "President Bush's connections to Enron were well-hyped during the company's accounting debacle that rippled through the economy," writes J.P. Freire at The Washington Examiner. Yet numbers on OpenSecrets.org show "compaign contributions from Goldman Sachs employees to president Obama are nearly seven times as much as President Bush received from Enron workers."

Follow the Men "His administration is infested with them," writes conservative Michelle Malkin. Some of her examples:

Goldman Sachs partner Gary Gensler is Obama's Commodity Futures Trading Commission head ... Goldman Sachs kept White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel on a $3,000 monthly retainer while he worked as Clinton’s chief fundraiser... Former Goldman Sachs lobbyist Mark Patterson serves under Geithner as his top deputy and overseer of TARP bailout ... White House National Economic Council head Larry Summers reaped nearly $2.8 million in speaking fees from many of the major financial institutions and government-bailout recipients he now polices, including JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Lehman Brothers, and Goldman Sachs ... [Larry] Summers's [former] boss, then–secretary of the Treasury Robert Rubin, was former co-chairman of ... Goldman Sachs

Or Follow Goldman's New Lawyer Gawker's Adrian Chen is one of many to raise an eyebrow at former White House counsel Greg Craig's defection. In the headline, he jokes, "Goldman Sachs Hoping Old White House Counsel Still Has Obama's Cell Number."

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ooooooooooooooooooooooo++++++++++++++++++

Point 4) Kagan (Obama connection)

Kagan Sat on Goldman Sachs Board

http://www.mainjustice.com/2010/04/27/kagan-sat-on-goldman-sachs-board/

Solicitor General Elena Kagan previously served on an advisory board for Goldman Sachs, a position that could complicate her nomination if she is selected to fill a Supreme Court vacancy, USA Today reported Tuesday.

Kagan served on Research Advisory Council of the Goldman Sachs Global Markets Institute from 2005 to 2008, according to financial disclosures she filed with the Senate Judiciary Committee when she was nominated as Solicitor General last year. She received $10,000 stipend in 2008 for her service.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Len scream and shout all you want,Goldman Sachs is 'ULTRA' politically connected. CASE CLOSED. sg

Edited January 7, 2012 by Steven Gaal