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 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 spells an America in major
transition. There may be a delay of the inevitable by a few
years, but eventually inflation will 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 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 the Wall Street
elite.