It isn’t really a conspiracy or a criticism. It’s just a fact.
In 2006, The Los Angeles Times did a story entitled, “Goldman Sachs Rules The World,” pointing out that former President Bush’s team of economic experts were basically a team of former Goldman Sachs executives. That list included Henry Paulson, who ran the Treasury Department and Josh Bolten, the former chief of staff among many others. The article stated, “Not since John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil -- and maybe not even then -- has one firm exerted such muscle over national economic and fiscal policy.”
Under Barack Obama, there has been really no “hope” of “change” in this regard. The new Treasury Secretary is Tim Geithner, whose trusted mentor is former Clinton aide Robert Rubin, an individual who worked at Goldman Sachs for 26 years. Geithner has been surrounded by the ‘good old boy’ Goldman Sachs network for all of his professional life.
Then there’s Larry Summers, the Director of the White House's National Economic Council. He is from the hedge fund D.E. Shaw who actually made a giant profit in 2008. Glenn Greenwald of Salon recently wrote an article entitled, “Larry Summers, Tim Geithner and Wall Street’s Ownership of Government,” in which he revealed that the White House released personal financial disclosure forms showing that Goldman Sachs paid Summers $135,000 to speak to them one year ago. He called it, “basically an advanced bribe,” pointing out the fact that it is an unusually large speaker’s fee granted at a suspect time, during an election.
On top of that, the Obama chief of staff is Wall Street’s best friend, Rahm Emmanuel. His list of top election donors is comprised almost entirely of Wall Street firms. The former banker and board director of Freddie Mac, "was the top House recipient in the 2008 election cycle of contributions from hedge funds, private equity firms and the larger securities/investment industry."
The list goes on and on.
Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz recently stated, “America has had a revolving door. People go from Wall Street to Treasury and back to Wall Street.”
On their bailout plans and stimulus plan, “You’re really bailing out the shareholders and the bondholders,” he said. “This is a strategy trying to recreate that bubble. That’s not likely to provide a long-run solution. It’s a solution that says let’s kick the can down the road a little bit.”
And that’s exactly what seems to satisfy the Goldman Sachs crowd. They’re looking to be protected in as many ways as possible. University of Missouri Professor and former Reagan-era S&L regulator Bill Black was on Bill Moyers' Journal and discussed a shocking topic that gets little attention:
Black: AIG was being used secretly to bail out favored banks like UBS and like Goldman Sachs, Secretary Paulson's firm, that he had come from being CEO. It got the largest amount of money. $12.9 billion. And they didn't want us to know that. And it was only Congressional pressure, and not Congressional pressure, by the way, on Geithner, but Congressional pressure on AIG.
Where Congress said, "We will not give you a single penny more unless we know who received the money." And, you know, when he was Treasury Secretary, Paulson created a recommendation group to tell Treasury what they ought to do with AIG. And he put Goldman Sachs on it.
Moyers: Even though Goldman Sachs had a big vested stake.
Black: Massive stake. And even though he had just been CEO of Goldman Sachs before becoming Treasury Secretary. Now, in most stages in American history, that would be a scandal of such proportions that he wouldn't be allowed in civilized society.
And who was installed by the government as CEO of AIG in September 2008?
Answer: Former Goldman Sachs executive, Ed Liddy.
Goldman Sachs (or Government Sachs, as The New York Times once called it) and the banking giants remaining will likely survive and maybe even thrive from this point forward. But at what cost? The government is making the various payments through TARP, through AIG and through massive government guarantees. The money comes from a printing press, which naturally dilutes everybody’s cash, inevitably causing inflation. In the background there is an impending energy crisis that gave America a taste of what impact $4 gasoline and rising consumer goods costs can have in triggering massive economic problems. Meanwhile, you have a liberal government ready to “help” at every opportunity.
Put it all together and it may spell an America in major transition. There may be a delay of the inevitable by a few years, but eventually inflation will likely rise dramatically, the middle class will be wiped out, the shareholders and bondholders will continue to be protected, and the government (Wall Street) will take even more control. It will be a society of haves and have-nots and no longer, "the land of opportunity." It is coming soon, thanks to another in a consecutive line of presidents who make all kinds of promises, but are really just captured by Wall Street's elite - a group of individuals who know not only how to make money, but know how to insure it when there's no more money to be made.
