Government by Goldman Sachs

[Octafish]

Former SEC regulator Carmen Segarra taped the top federal regulator at Goldman say certain laws don't apply to the rich.



Those interested in justice may want to download a copy before they're gone:

The Secret Recordings of Carmen Segarra

From This American Life:

An unprecedented look inside one of the most powerful, secretive institutions in the country. The NY Federal Reserve is supposed to monitor big banks. But when Carmen Segarra was hired, what she witnessed inside the Fed was so alarming that she got a tiny recorder and started secretly taping.

SOURCE: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/536/the-secret-recordings-of-carmen-segarra

What another economist noted before he got fired and then won the Nobel Prize:

Larry Summers: Goldman Sacked

Monday, September 16, 2013
By Greg Palast for Reader Supported News

Joseph Stiglitz couldn't believe his ears. Here they were in the White House, with President Bill Clinton asking the chiefs of the US Treasury for guidance on the life and death of America's economy, when the Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Larry Summers turns to his boss, Secretary Robert Rubin, and says, "What would Goldman think of that?"

Huh?

Then, at another meeting, Summers said it again: What would Goldman think? A shocked Stiglitz, then Chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisors, told me he'd turned to Summers, and asked if Summers thought it appropriate to decide US economic policy based on "what Goldman thought." As opposed to say, the facts, or say, the needs of the American public, you know, all that stuff that we heard in Cabinet meetings on The West Wing.

Summers looked at Stiglitz like Stiglitz was some kind of naive fool who'd read too many civics books.

CONTINUED...

http://www.gregpalast.com/larry-summers-goldman-sacked/

Then there's Goldman Sach's legendary generosity, not limited to the Executive and Legislative branches.

Here's The REAL Connection Elena Kagan Has To Goldman: Three Days Of Easy Work

Newly nominated Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan's supposed connection to Goldman Sachs is much ado about nothing.

Reports are flying around that she "worked for Goldman," when she straight up did not.

She was one of many on a council that spent three days (one day each year from 2005-2008) advising on the Research Advisory Council of the Goldman Sachs Global Markets Institute. Kagan was paid $10,000.

Justice Department spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler explains in HuffPo, "They met once a year for a day-long conference organized around public policy matters. The group was not involved in making any investment decisions for the company."

SOURCE: http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-the-real-connection-elena-kagan-has-to-goldman-three-days-of-easy-work-2010-5

Nice people, all, I'm sure, even if Ms. Kagan sided with Karl Rove over Gov. Don Siegelman and 100 former state attorneys general. The thing is, people without money don't get much help from government these days.

[Electric Monk]

1. I think you'll like this Mr. Fish 'toon (k&r)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025592717

[Octafish]

5. The guy's face rings a bell.

Here's one distribution list I'd've liked to have been cc'd on:

Wikileaks Release Suggests Stratfor Inside Info Plan with Goldman Sachs Exec

By Ryan Villarreal: Subscribe to Ryan's RSS feed
IBTimes.com
February 27, 2012 6:26 PM EST

WikiLeaks released more than 5 million e-mails Monday hacked from U.S.-based global intelligence firm Strategy Forecasting Inc. (Stratfor), revealing an alleged plan between the firm's CEO and a Goldman Sachs executive to set up an investment fund that would rely on inside information gathered by the company.

A September 2011 company-wide e-mail composed by Stratfor CEO George Friedman indicates that Goldman Sachs financial adviser and former Managing Director Shea Morenz was directly involved in the establishment of the investment fund StratCap.

"Shea Morenz provided us with two opportunities," wrote Friedman.

"First, he made an investment in Stratfor designed to give us the capital needed to build our staff and our marketing. Second, he proposed a new venture, StratCap, which would allow us to utilize the intelligence we were gathering about the world in a new but related venue -- an investment fund. Where we had previously advised other hedge funds. We would now have our own, itself fully funded by Shea."

CONTINUED...

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/305532/20120227/wikileaks-stratfor-stratcap-goldman-sachs-fund-julian.htm

Money making money. And policy. Like nationwide NSA surveillance. Top Secret, too.

[woo me with science]

38. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Thank you.

[Octafish]

39. Obama’s bankster bromance

americablog, 2/5/2013
by Chris in Paris

The White House is holding a meeting today with a number of business leaders to discuss the President’s economic agenda, including immigration. This is encouraging, as it will be important to get leaders on board with reforming immigration rules.

What’s less encouraging is that the President continues to treat Goldman Sach’s CEO Lloyd Blankfein like he’s royalty.

Even if you put aside the bailout “taker” receiving billions of tax dollars indirectly via AIG during the industry bailout, the relationship is strange. Goldman may not have been the worst offender (or at least, the most costly) of the Wall Street banks responsible for trashing the US economy, but they were certainly in the thick of the problem. Relying on the expertise of any CEO from Wall Street is bizarre.

Even though Obama did plenty of campaign fundraisers on Wall Street, including with Blainkfein, the President should have more consideration for the Americans who carried the heavy load and paid for the sins of Wall Street. This is what happens when Democrats allow the unions to be cut to pieces. The only counter-balance to GOP money is banker money, and lots of it.

SNIP...

Even more recently Blankfein decided to hand out bonuses in the US early – unusually early – so that Goldman workers, himself included, could avoid any tax increases in the US. Yes, the tax dollars that saved their collective asses was so long ago and that memory has escaped them.

CONTINUED with links...

http://americablog.com/2013/02/whats-up-with-obamas-bromance-with-lloyd-blankfein.html

PS: You are most welcome, woo me with science!

PPS: My autoworker friends are sore steamed.

[hifiguy]

2. Bookmarked!

[Octafish]

7. This guy's face rang a bell at the NYSE a lot...

The Ultimate Cold Call



Then-head of New York Stock Exchange Richard Grasso and then-living FARC rebel commander Raul Reyes share a hug before sitting down to share a moment. Perhaps they talked of coffee bean futures and the rights of man, especially the property part.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=4649515&mesg_id=4649742

[antigop]

3. Lloyd Blankfein: "I held fundraisers for her." (HRC)

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/04/wall-street-republicans-hillary-clinton-2016-106070.html?hp=t1

But the private consensus is similar to what Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein said to POLITICO late last year when he praised both Christie — before the bridge scandal — and Clinton. “I very much was supportive of Hillary Clinton the last go-round,” he said. “I held fundraisers for her.”

[Octafish]

9. You gotta really love somebody to do that. It's like a bonus is.

Ex-Goldman Trader Who Said $8 Million Bonus ''Too Low'' Involved in Fraudulent Activities

Turns out the guy missed out on another $5 million not because he was doing crooked things to make Goldman billions, but because he revealed the crooked things Goldman was doing to the press.



From the people interested in economic justice at World Socialist Web Site:

Former Goldman trader involved in fraudulent activities says $8 million bonus too low

By Andre Damon
WSWS.org, 21 June 2014

A former Goldman Sachs trader who helped the bank bet against toxic mortgage-backed securities it was palming off to investors is attempting to sue his former employer because he says his multimillion-dollar pay package did not reflect the billions of dollars the bank earned as a result of his trades.

Deeb Salem, the former head of trading for Goldman’s Structured Products Group, complained that he received an $8.25 million bonus in 2010, though he said informal comments made by company executives led him to believe he would get closer to $13 million that year.

Salem filed a petition with the New York State Supreme Court last week, demanding that he get an additional $7 million from Goldman, after the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority—a Wall Street self-regulator—ruled in favor of Goldman in an earlier arbitration.

[font color="green"]Salem claims his pay was docked because, as noted in a written warning he received, he showed “extremely poor judgment” by bragging in print about trades that his trading desk had made under his supervision in his 2007 annual self-evaluation. It should be noted that Salem’s pay was docked not because he carried out illegal trades, but because he left a paper trail.[/font color]

SNIP...

[font color="red"]Salem’s report refutes the 2010 claim made by Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein under oath that “we didn’t have a massive short against the housing market, and we certainly did not bet against our clients.”[/font color]

CONTINUED...

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/06/21/gold-j21.html

I don't like the game when the refs get off the same bus as the opposing team.

[questionseverything]

28. where are our du lawyers to explain how this lie

Salem’s report refutes the 2010 claim made by Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein under oath that “we didn’t have a massive short against the housing market, and we certainly did not bet against our clients.”

/////////////

is perfectly legal?

[L0oniX]

15. Rinse and repeat in 2016.

[another_liberal]

4. This is about as good as it can get for the filthy rich who run our country . . .

That also means things have just about reached a tipping point.

The greedheads and fatcats will not be pleased with what is going to happen next.

[Jackpine Radical]

8. We are in interesting times; fundamentally, we're in the beginning stages of

the ultimate test of what I think of as Greed Power--the mighty forces available to the super-wealthy who seek to finalize their control over the globe. Between outright bribery, election rigging, mass media long ago co-opted into functioning as their propaganda system, police and military forces that bend to their will, and a desperate permanent underclass from which to recruit their lackeys, I must admit that they seem somewhat formidable.

The Zappa Moment is coming:

“The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.”

[Octafish]

10. ''...once clients are wealthy enough certain consumer laws don't apply to them.''

Unless they learn to share PDQ, they're in for a big surprise. If they're not prepared, they're in trouble.



That's why the smart millionaire listens when Frank "Carlyle Group's Man in Congo" Carlucci speaks:

The Really Creepy People Behind the Libertarian-Inspired Billionaire Sea Castles

The stinking rich are planning billion-dollar luxury liners that keep the land-based Americans they've plundered at a safe distance.

AlterNet / By Mark Ames
June 1, 2010

What happens when Americans plunder America and leave it broken, destitute and seething mad? Where do these fabulously wealthy Americans go with their loot, if America isn't a safe, secure, or even desirable place to spend their riches? What if they lose faith in their gated communities, because those plush gated communities are surrounded by millions of pissed-off Americans stripped of their entitlements, and who now want in?

The first such floating castle has been christened the " Utopia"--the South Korean firm Samsung has been contracted to build the $1.1 billion ship, due to be launched in 2013. Already orders are coming in to buy one of the Utopia's 200 or so mansions for sale- -which range in price from about $4 million for the smallest condos to over $26 million for 6,600 square-foot "estates." The largest mansion is a whopping 40,000 square feet, and sells for $160 million.

SNIP...

Both Thiel and Milton Friedman's grandson see democracy as the enemy--last year, Thiel wrote "I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible" at about the same time that Milton Friedman's grandson proclaimed, "Democracy is not the answer." Both published their anti-democracy proclamations in the same billionaire-Koch-family-funded outlet, Cato Unbound, one of the oldest billionaire-fed libertarian welfare dispensaries. Friedman's answer for Thiel's democracy problem is to build offshore libertarian pod-fortresses where the libertarian way rules. It's probably better for everyone if Milton Friedman's grandson and Peter Thiel leave us forever for their libertarian ocean lair--Thiel believes that America went down the tubes ever since it gave women the right to vote, and he was outed as the sponsor of accused felon James O'Keefe's smear videos that brought ACORN to ruin.

SNIP...

While neither Bush nor the Bin Ladens are principals in the Frontier Group, its founding director, Frank Carlucci, is a name they know well, and you should too. Carlucci ran the Carlyle Group as its chairman from 1989 through 2005, right around the time that the wars started going undeniably bad, and floating castles started to look like a viable plan. But Carlucci's past is much weirder and scarier than most of us care to know: whether it's his strangely timed appearances in some of the ugliest assassinations and coups in modern history, or serving as Carter's number two man in the CIA, and Ronald Reagan's Secretary of Defense, if Frank Carlucci (nicknamed "Creepy Carlucci" and "Spooky Frank&quot is the founding director of a firm that's building floating castles, it's a bad sign for those of us left behind.

I'll get into Carlucci's partners in the Frontier Group in a moment, but first, let's reacquaint ourselves with Frank Carlucci. From an early age, Carlucci learned the importance of getting to know the right people in the right places. He studied at Princeton in the mid-1950s, where as luck should have it, Carlucci roomed with Donald Rumsfeld. Both Carlucci and Rumsfeld shared a passion for Greco-Roman wrestling at Princeton, and both went on to serve in the Navy after Princeton. Their paths would split and merge several times over the next few decades, even as they remained close personal friends throughout their lives. In the late 1950s, Carlucci briefly served as an executive at a lingerie manufacturer, Jantzen (the Victoria's Secret of its day), but quickly left to join the State Department.

CONTINUED...

http://www.alternet.org/story/147058/the_really_creepy_people_behind_the_libertarian-inspired_billionaire_sea_castles

These are pretty exclusive deals for those who act fast now. Plus, imagine the look of envy on your friends' faces at the country club when they learn they have to pay full price after the Big Financial Collapse VII or Terra Attack 2015 or whatever excuse they'll use to turn out the lights on democracy.

[Enthusiast]

23. We will have to deploy the torpedoes.

That is all.

[suffragette]

26. Makes me think of Swift's Laputa in Gulliver's Travels

Ships instead of a flying island and financiers instead of mathematicians. Instead of maneuvering Laputa to block out sun/rain or to bombard the poor with rocks, the financiers hold economies hostage by threatening to crash them if the don't get their way. And the ships give them a way to further distance themselves from the results of the havoc they wreak on societies.
Tyranny either way.

[tazkcmo]

6. rec'd

Thank you for posting this, even if it does deepen my depression. It's important.

[Octafish]

32. Elizabeth Warren and Sherrod Brown are taking the allegations most seriously.

And that is a good thing, tazkcmo.

Secret Recordings Inside The Federal Reserve Prompt Elizabeth Warren To Call For Investigation

BY ALAN PYKE
ThinkProgress, POSTED ON SEPTEMBER 28, 2014 AT 2:03 PM

Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH) want to investigate the Federal Reserve’s relationships with the banks it oversees after the release of taped conversations between managers and a former bank examiner at the Fed.

SNIP...

On Friday, Warren said the recordings require action from Capitol Hill. “Congress must hold oversight hearings on the disturbing issues raised by today’s whistleblower report when it returns in November, because it’s our job to make sure our financial regulators are doing their jobs,” she said in a statement. “When regulators care more about protecting big banks from accountability than they do about protecting the American people from risky and illegal behavior on Wall Street, it threatens our whole economy.”

Brown, who serves on the Senate Banking Committee with Warren, backed her request in a statement of his own. “These allegations deserve a full and thorough investigation, and American taxpayers deserve regulators who will fight each day on their behalf,” the Ohio senator and frequent financial industry critic said.

SNIP...

Regulatory capture is just one example of the many abstract cultural forces on Wall Street that create an environment where financial misdeeds can flourish, imperiling the real economy that employs everyone else in the business of making and selling goods and services. Surveys of industry insiders have repeatedly found worrying evidence of ethical lapses among people in the financial business, including outright disregard for the law. A quarter of those surveyed in 2013 said that they would knowingly break the law for financial gain. That number jumped to 38 percent for respondents who have worked in finance for less than a decade. The same survey also found that women are twice as likely to fear retaliation for whistleblowing as men.

Wall Street culture holds immense power over the world’s economic fortunes. The products that firms were creating and trading and gambling on in the run-up to the financial crisis were widely understood to be unrealistic, according to white collar crime expert William Black, but there was a cultural understanding that everybody was going to get rich if they kept up the charade. Black and other experts use the acronym “IBGYBG” — I’ll Be Gone, You’ll Be Gone — to describe the dominant mentality among the highly skilled and technically savvy financial professionals who got rich trading pieces of paper that later proved to be valueless. These critics argue that Wall Street professionals knew they’d be able to cash out big bonuses and walk away before the crisis hit.

CONTINUED...

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/09/28/3573141/segarra-recordings-elizabeth-warren-hearing/

Do not despair for as long as two people give a damn, democracy lives.

[tazkcmo]

33. Thanks

Thank you for your posts (always interesting!) and your words of encouragement!

[daredtowork]

11. Please let someone finally nail Larry Summers, too

Though he's being wined and dined by the Chinese, so he won't be hurting if the U.S. unfriends him.

[Octafish]

42. China? The Bush family is into China biz Big Time.

Neil's uncle, Prescott S Bush, Jr., founded the US-China Chamber of Commerce. Middle Kingdom Rainmakers, they call their BFEE chums. Oh So Social, that made money for the Right People.

China blocks New York Times website after story on leader's family wealth.

Gee. Most interesting to see how one capitalist's nation's elite helped a communist nation's get filthy, filthy rich. Turned out it's the same way it's done here: ripping off the workers.

[JEB]

12. K&R&bookmark

Very important stuff. Thanks for all your diligent work finding, organizing and presenting.

[adirondacker]

13. Warren Responds To "This American Life" - Calls for Hearings on New York Fed Allegations

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025593218

!!!

[Octafish]

43. Primer for the Goldman Sachs secret tapes

Sounds like Sen. Warren plans a lot of investigating:

Primer for the Goldman Sachs secret tapes

by Elizabeth Warren
Boston Globe, Sept. 26, 2014

THE FEDERAL Reserve Bank of New York is responsible for regulating the nation’s biggest banks. But new secret audio tapes indicate the banks — not the Fed — are in charge. Congress can keep making the rules tougher and tougher, but it won’t make an ounce of difference if the regulators won’t enforce those rules. Below is a primer to explain what’s going on.

Wall Street Journal, ‘N.Y. Fed Staff Afraid to Speak Up, Secret Review Found’ by Pedro Nicolaci Da Costa

“The Federal Reserve Bank of New York commissioned a secret internal investigation of itself in 2009, uncovering a culture of suppression that discouraged regulatory staffers from voicing worries about the banks they supervised.

“The review found a highly bureaucratic structure that discouraged staffers from offering their honest opinions. The report called for “a sustained effort to overcome excessive risk-aversion and get people to speak up when they have concerns, disagreements or useful ideas.”

CONTINUED...

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2014/09/26/n-y-fed-staff-afraid-to-speak-up-secret-review-found/

I wonder if her distinguished colleagues would also be interested in investigating corruption in The Fed, Goldman Sachs and the SEC should the Democrats lose control of the Senate?

[JEB]

14. I'd like to see Joseph Stiglitz in a cabinet position.

[Enthusiast]

24. Me too.

[woo me with science]

16. K&R

[Scuba]

17. K&R

[JEB]

18. K&R for the original post and subsequent informative posts and links.

So much important information.

[Octafish]

21. Thank you, JEB! Here's from before Obama Admin...

Know your BFEE: Goldmine Sacked or The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One

I borrowed the title from Dr. Black:

http://o10b.info/deadpanaborigin/2014/09/12/download-the-best-way-to-rob-a-bank-is-to-own-one-how-corporate-executives-and-politicians-looted-the-sl-industry-ebook-review-free/

Were Dr. Black still in government service, thousands of Banksters would be behind bars. The fact they aren't explains a heck of a lot.

[Autumn]

19. Recommended!

[antigop]

20. kick nt

[Enthusiast]

22. K&R! This post deserves hundreds of recommendations!

Hundreds!

[Ichingcarpenter]

25. kick nominated...n/t

[spanone]

27. k&r...

[KoKo]

29. Thank you once again Octofish! And, to those who replied with additional info.

[woo me with science]

30. kick

[MinM]

31. Elizabeth Warren calls for hearings into the New York Fed's relationship with banks.

@thinkprogress: Secret recordings from inside Goldman Sachs and the Federal Reserve prompt Elizabeth Warren to call for investigation http://goo.gl/VoxBCE

[bobthedrummer]

34. K&R. Just a few names that keep cropping up, over and over and over-the Bushes, The House of Saud,

Nazis, The Bank of International Settlements, The Carlyle Group, James Bath, Robert Gates...

Stay on the history of all these traitors Octafish-the Demoncracy in word (Money trumps peace, corporations are people/$ is free speech...) and indeed (private armies, "dirty deeds done dirt cheap" etc.).

We, the people are dying to learn more, literally.

on edit:
http://www.truthdig.com/tag/goldman+sachs

[WillyT]

35. HUGE K & R !!! - THANK YOU !!!

[LondonReign2]

36. Kick

[woo me with science]

37. kick

[bobthedrummer]

40. kick

[Electric Monk]

41. kick