interesting article and short video on goldman sachs
Pepe Silvia
Posts: 3,758
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/st ... le_machine
The Great American Bubble Machine
Matt Taibbi on how Goldman Sachs has engineered every major market manipulation since the Great Depression
In Rolling Stone Issue 1082-83, Matt Taibbi takes on "the Wall Street Bubble Mafia" — investment bank Goldman Sachs. The piece has generated controversy, with Goldman Sachs firing back that Taibbi's piece is "an hysterical compilation of conspiracy theories" and a spokesman adding, "We reject the assertion that we are inflators of bubbles and profiteers in busts, and we are painfully conscious of the importance in being a force for good." Taibbi shot back: "Goldman has its alumni pushing its views from the pulpit of the U.S. Treasury, the NYSE, the World Bank, and numerous other important posts; it also has former players fronting major TV shows. They have the ear of the president if they want it." Here, now, are excerpts from Matt Taibbi's piece and video of Taibbi exploring the key issues.
Goldman Sachs' Big Scam
The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is that it's everywhere. The world's most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.
Any attempt to construct a narrative around all the former Goldmanites in influential positions quickly becomes an absurd and pointless exercise, like trying to make a list of everything. What you need to know is the big picture: If America is circling the drain, Goldman Sachs has found a way to be that drain — an extremely unfortunate loophole in the system of Western democratic capitalism, which never foresaw that in a society governed passively by free markets and free elections, organized greed always defeats disorganized democracy.
They achieve this using the same playbook over and over again. The formula is relatively simple: Goldman positions itself in the middle of a speculative bubble, selling investments they know are crap. Then they hoover up vast sums from the middle and lower floors of society with the aid of a crippled and corrupt state that allows it to rewrite the rules in exchange for the relative pennies the bank throws at political patronage. Finally, when it all goes bust, leaving millions of ordinary citizens broke and starving, they begin the entire process over again, riding in to rescue us all by lending us back our own money at interest, selling themselves as men above greed, just a bunch of really smart guys keeping the wheels greased. They've been pulling this same stunt over and over since the 1920s — and now they're preparing to do it again, creating what may be the biggest and most audacious bubble yet.
Goldman Sachs' Role in the Housing and Internet Busts
The basic scam in the Internet Age is pretty easy even for the financially illiterate to grasp. Companies that weren't much more than pot-fueled ideas scrawled on napkins by up-too-late bong-smokers were taken public via IPOs, hyped in the media and sold to the public for megamillions. It was as if banks like Goldman were wrapping ribbons around watermelons, tossing them out 50-story windows and opening the phones for bids. In this game you were a winner only if you took your money out before the melon hit the pavement.
It sounds obvious now, but what the average investor didn't know at the time was that the banks had changed the rules of the game, making the deals look better than they actually were. They did this by setting up what was, in reality, a two-tiered investment system — one for the insiders who knew the real numbers, and another for the lay investor who was invited to chase soaring prices the banks themselves knew were irrational. While Goldman's later pattern would be to capitalize on changes in the regulatory environment, its key innovation in the Internet years was to abandon its own industry's standards of quality control.
Goldman's role in the sweeping global disaster that was the housing bubble is not hard to trace. Here again, the basic trick was a decline in underwriting standards, although in this case the standards weren't in IPOs but in mortgages. By now almost everyone knows that for decades mortgage dealers insisted that home buyers be able to produce a down payment of 10 percent or more, show a steady income and good credit rating, and possess a real first and last name. Then, at the dawn of the new millennium, they suddenly threw all that shit out the window and started writing mortgages on the backs of napkins to cocktail waitresses and ex-cons carrying five bucks and a Snickers bar.
And what caused the huge spike in oil prices? Take a wild guess. Obviously Goldman had help — there were other players in the physical-commodities market — but the root cause had almost everything to do with the behavior of a few powerful actors determined to turn the once-solid market into a speculative casino. Goldman did it by persuading pension funds and other large institutional investors to invest in oil futures — agreeing to buy oil at a certain price on a fixed date. The push transformed oil from a physical commodity, rigidly subject to supply and demand, into something to bet on, like a stock. Between 2003 and 2008, the amount of speculative money in commodities grew from $13 billion to $317 billion, an increase of 2,300 percent. By 2008, a barrel of oil was traded 27 times, on average, before it was actually delivered and consumed.
Goldman' Sachs Graduates with Government Positions
The history of the recent financial crisis, which doubles as a history of the rapid decline and fall of the suddenly swindled-dry American empire, reads like a Who's Who of Goldman Sachs graduates. By now, most of us know the major players. As George Bush's last Treasury secretary, former Goldman CEO Henry Paulson was the architect of the bailout, a suspiciously self-serving plan to funnel trillions of Your Dollars to a handful of his old friends on Wall Street. Robert Rubin, Bill Clinton's former Treasury secretary, spent 26 years at Goldman before becoming chairman of Citigroup — which in turn got a $300 billion taxpayer bailout from Paulson. There's John Thain, the asshole chief of Merrill Lynch who bought an $87,000 area rug for his office as his company was imploding; a former Goldman banker, Thain enjoyed a multibillion-dollar handout from Paulson, who used billions in taxpayer funds to help Bank of America rescue Thain's sorry company. And Robert Steel, the former Goldmanite head of Wachovia, scored himself and his fellow executives $225 million in golden-parachute payments as his bank was self-destructing. There's Joshua Bolten, Bush's chief of staff during the bailout, and Mark Patterson, the current Treasury chief of staff, who was a Goldman lobbyist just a year ago, and Ed Liddy, the former Goldman director whom Paulson put in charge of bailed-out insurance giant AIG, which forked over $13 billion to Goldman after Liddy came on board. The heads of the Canadian and Italian national banks are Goldman alums, as is the head of the World Bank, the head of the New York Stock Exchange, the last two heads of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York — which, incidentally, is now in charge of overseeing Goldman.
But then, something happened. It's hard to say what it was exactly; it might have been the fact that Goldman's co-chairman in the early Nineties, Robert Rubin, followed Bill Clinton to the White House, where he directed the National Economic Council and eventually became Treasury secretary. While the American media fell in love with the story line of a pair of baby-boomer, Sixties-child, Fleetwood Mac yuppies nesting in the White House, it also nursed an undisguised crush on Rubin, who was hyped as without a doubt the smartest person ever to walk the face of the Earth, with Newton, Einstein, Mozart and Kant running far behind.
Rubin was the prototypical Goldman banker. He was probably born in a $4,000 suit, he had a face that seemed permanently frozen just short of an apology for being so much smarter than you, and he exuded a Spock-like, emotion-neutral exterior; the only human feeling you could imagine him experiencing was a nightmare about being forced to fly coach. It became almost a national cliché that whatever Rubin thought was best for the economy — a phenomenon that reached its apex in 1999, when Rubin appeared on the cover of Time with his Treasury deputy, Larry Summers, and Fed chief Alan Greenspan under the headline the committee to save the world. And "what Rubin thought," mostly, was that the American economy, and in particular the financial markets, were over-regulated and needed to be set free. During his tenure at Treasury, the Clinton White House made a series of moves that would have drastic consequences for the global economy — beginning with Rubin's complete and total failure to regulate his old firm during its first mad dash for obscene short-term profits.
Goldman Sachs' Powerful Influence
After the oil bubble collapsed last fall, there was no new bubble to keep things humming — this time, the money seems to be really gone, like worldwide-depression gone. So the financial safari has moved elsewhere, and the big game in the hunt has become the only remaining pool of dumb, unguarded capital left to feed upon: taxpayer money. Here, in the biggest bailout in history, is where Goldman Sachs really started to flex its muscle.
It began in September of last year, when then-Treasury secretary Paulson made a momentous series of decisions. Although he had already engineered a rescue of Bear Stearns a few months before and helped bail out quasi-private lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Paulson elected to let Lehman Brothers — one of Goldman's last real competitors — collapse without intervention. ("Goldman's superhero status was left intact," says market analyst Eric Salzman, "and an investment-banking competitor, Lehman, goes away.") The very next day, Paulson greenlighted a massive, $85 billion bailout of AIG, which promptly turned around and repaid $13 billion it owed to Goldman. Thanks to the rescue effort, the bank ended up getting paid in full for its bad bets: By contrast, retired auto workers awaiting the Chrysler bailout will be lucky to receive 50 cents for every dollar they are owed.
Immediately after the AIG bailout, Paulson announced his federal bailout for the financial industry, a $700 billion plan called the Troubled Asset Relief Program, and put a heretofore unknown 35-year-old Goldman banker named Neel Kashkari in charge of administering the funds. In order to qualify for bailout monies, Goldman announced that it would convert from an investment bank to a bank-holding company, a move that allows it access not only to $10 billion in TARP funds, but to a whole galaxy of less conspicuous, publicly backed funding — most notably, lending from the discount window of the Federal Reserve. By the end of March, the Fed will have lent or guaranteed at least $8.7 trillion under a series of new bailout programs — and thanks to an obscure law allowing the Fed to block most congressional audits, both the amounts and the recipients of the monies remain almost entirely secret.
Converting to a bank-holding company has other benefits as well: Goldman's primary supervisor is now the New York Fed, whose chairman at the time of its announcement was Stephen Friedman, a former co-chairman of Goldman Sachs. Friedman was technically in violation of Federal Reserve policy by remaining on the board of Goldman even as he was supposedly regulating the bank; in order to rectify the problem, he applied for, and got, a conflict-of-interest waiver from the government. Friedman was also supposed to divest himself of his Goldman stock after Goldman became a bank-holding company, but thanks to the waiver, he was allowed to go out and buy 52,000 additional shares in his old bank, leaving him $3 million richer. Friedman stepped down in May, but the man now in charge of supervising Goldman — New York Fed president William Dudley — is yet another former Goldmanite.
The collective message of all of this — the AIG bailout, the swift approval for its bank-holding conversion, the TARP funds — is that when it comes to Goldman Sachs, there isn't a free market at all. The government might let other players on the market die, but it simply will not allow Goldman to fail under any circumstances. Its edge in the market has suddenly become an open declaration of supreme privilege. "In the past it was an implicit advantage," says Simon Johnson, an economics professor at MIT and former official at the International Monetary Fund, who compares the bailout to the crony capitalism he has seen in Third World countries. "Now it's more of an explicit advantage."
Goldman Sachs' Excuse
Fast-forward to today. It's early June in Washington, D.C. Barack Obama, a popular young politician whose leading private campaign donor was an investment bank called Goldman Sachs — its employees paid some $981,000 to his campaign — sits in the White House. Having seamlessly navigated the political minefield of the bailout era, Goldman is once again back to its old business, scouting out loopholes in a new government-created market with the aid of a new set of alumni occupying key government jobs.
Gone are Hank Paulson and Neel Kashkari; in their place are Treasury chief of staff Mark Patterson and CFTC chief Gary Gensler, both former Goldmanites. (Gensler was the firm's co-head of finance.) And instead of credit derivatives or oil futures or mortgage-backed CDOs, the new game in town, the next bubble, is in carbon credits — a booming trillion- dollar market that barely even exists yet, but will if the Democratic Party that it gave $4,452,585 to in the last election manages to push into existence a groundbreaking new commodities bubble, disguised as an "environmental plan," called cap-and-trade. The new carbon-credit market is a virtual repeat of the commodities-market casino that's been kind to Goldman, except it has one delicious new wrinkle: If the plan goes forward as expected, the rise in prices will be government-mandated. Goldman won't even have to rig the game. It will be rigged in advance.
The Great American Bubble Machine
Matt Taibbi on how Goldman Sachs has engineered every major market manipulation since the Great Depression
In Rolling Stone Issue 1082-83, Matt Taibbi takes on "the Wall Street Bubble Mafia" — investment bank Goldman Sachs. The piece has generated controversy, with Goldman Sachs firing back that Taibbi's piece is "an hysterical compilation of conspiracy theories" and a spokesman adding, "We reject the assertion that we are inflators of bubbles and profiteers in busts, and we are painfully conscious of the importance in being a force for good." Taibbi shot back: "Goldman has its alumni pushing its views from the pulpit of the U.S. Treasury, the NYSE, the World Bank, and numerous other important posts; it also has former players fronting major TV shows. They have the ear of the president if they want it." Here, now, are excerpts from Matt Taibbi's piece and video of Taibbi exploring the key issues.
Goldman Sachs' Big Scam
The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is that it's everywhere. The world's most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.
Any attempt to construct a narrative around all the former Goldmanites in influential positions quickly becomes an absurd and pointless exercise, like trying to make a list of everything. What you need to know is the big picture: If America is circling the drain, Goldman Sachs has found a way to be that drain — an extremely unfortunate loophole in the system of Western democratic capitalism, which never foresaw that in a society governed passively by free markets and free elections, organized greed always defeats disorganized democracy.
They achieve this using the same playbook over and over again. The formula is relatively simple: Goldman positions itself in the middle of a speculative bubble, selling investments they know are crap. Then they hoover up vast sums from the middle and lower floors of society with the aid of a crippled and corrupt state that allows it to rewrite the rules in exchange for the relative pennies the bank throws at political patronage. Finally, when it all goes bust, leaving millions of ordinary citizens broke and starving, they begin the entire process over again, riding in to rescue us all by lending us back our own money at interest, selling themselves as men above greed, just a bunch of really smart guys keeping the wheels greased. They've been pulling this same stunt over and over since the 1920s — and now they're preparing to do it again, creating what may be the biggest and most audacious bubble yet.
Goldman Sachs' Role in the Housing and Internet Busts
The basic scam in the Internet Age is pretty easy even for the financially illiterate to grasp. Companies that weren't much more than pot-fueled ideas scrawled on napkins by up-too-late bong-smokers were taken public via IPOs, hyped in the media and sold to the public for megamillions. It was as if banks like Goldman were wrapping ribbons around watermelons, tossing them out 50-story windows and opening the phones for bids. In this game you were a winner only if you took your money out before the melon hit the pavement.
It sounds obvious now, but what the average investor didn't know at the time was that the banks had changed the rules of the game, making the deals look better than they actually were. They did this by setting up what was, in reality, a two-tiered investment system — one for the insiders who knew the real numbers, and another for the lay investor who was invited to chase soaring prices the banks themselves knew were irrational. While Goldman's later pattern would be to capitalize on changes in the regulatory environment, its key innovation in the Internet years was to abandon its own industry's standards of quality control.
Goldman's role in the sweeping global disaster that was the housing bubble is not hard to trace. Here again, the basic trick was a decline in underwriting standards, although in this case the standards weren't in IPOs but in mortgages. By now almost everyone knows that for decades mortgage dealers insisted that home buyers be able to produce a down payment of 10 percent or more, show a steady income and good credit rating, and possess a real first and last name. Then, at the dawn of the new millennium, they suddenly threw all that shit out the window and started writing mortgages on the backs of napkins to cocktail waitresses and ex-cons carrying five bucks and a Snickers bar.
And what caused the huge spike in oil prices? Take a wild guess. Obviously Goldman had help — there were other players in the physical-commodities market — but the root cause had almost everything to do with the behavior of a few powerful actors determined to turn the once-solid market into a speculative casino. Goldman did it by persuading pension funds and other large institutional investors to invest in oil futures — agreeing to buy oil at a certain price on a fixed date. The push transformed oil from a physical commodity, rigidly subject to supply and demand, into something to bet on, like a stock. Between 2003 and 2008, the amount of speculative money in commodities grew from $13 billion to $317 billion, an increase of 2,300 percent. By 2008, a barrel of oil was traded 27 times, on average, before it was actually delivered and consumed.
Goldman' Sachs Graduates with Government Positions
The history of the recent financial crisis, which doubles as a history of the rapid decline and fall of the suddenly swindled-dry American empire, reads like a Who's Who of Goldman Sachs graduates. By now, most of us know the major players. As George Bush's last Treasury secretary, former Goldman CEO Henry Paulson was the architect of the bailout, a suspiciously self-serving plan to funnel trillions of Your Dollars to a handful of his old friends on Wall Street. Robert Rubin, Bill Clinton's former Treasury secretary, spent 26 years at Goldman before becoming chairman of Citigroup — which in turn got a $300 billion taxpayer bailout from Paulson. There's John Thain, the asshole chief of Merrill Lynch who bought an $87,000 area rug for his office as his company was imploding; a former Goldman banker, Thain enjoyed a multibillion-dollar handout from Paulson, who used billions in taxpayer funds to help Bank of America rescue Thain's sorry company. And Robert Steel, the former Goldmanite head of Wachovia, scored himself and his fellow executives $225 million in golden-parachute payments as his bank was self-destructing. There's Joshua Bolten, Bush's chief of staff during the bailout, and Mark Patterson, the current Treasury chief of staff, who was a Goldman lobbyist just a year ago, and Ed Liddy, the former Goldman director whom Paulson put in charge of bailed-out insurance giant AIG, which forked over $13 billion to Goldman after Liddy came on board. The heads of the Canadian and Italian national banks are Goldman alums, as is the head of the World Bank, the head of the New York Stock Exchange, the last two heads of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York — which, incidentally, is now in charge of overseeing Goldman.
But then, something happened. It's hard to say what it was exactly; it might have been the fact that Goldman's co-chairman in the early Nineties, Robert Rubin, followed Bill Clinton to the White House, where he directed the National Economic Council and eventually became Treasury secretary. While the American media fell in love with the story line of a pair of baby-boomer, Sixties-child, Fleetwood Mac yuppies nesting in the White House, it also nursed an undisguised crush on Rubin, who was hyped as without a doubt the smartest person ever to walk the face of the Earth, with Newton, Einstein, Mozart and Kant running far behind.
Rubin was the prototypical Goldman banker. He was probably born in a $4,000 suit, he had a face that seemed permanently frozen just short of an apology for being so much smarter than you, and he exuded a Spock-like, emotion-neutral exterior; the only human feeling you could imagine him experiencing was a nightmare about being forced to fly coach. It became almost a national cliché that whatever Rubin thought was best for the economy — a phenomenon that reached its apex in 1999, when Rubin appeared on the cover of Time with his Treasury deputy, Larry Summers, and Fed chief Alan Greenspan under the headline the committee to save the world. And "what Rubin thought," mostly, was that the American economy, and in particular the financial markets, were over-regulated and needed to be set free. During his tenure at Treasury, the Clinton White House made a series of moves that would have drastic consequences for the global economy — beginning with Rubin's complete and total failure to regulate his old firm during its first mad dash for obscene short-term profits.
Goldman Sachs' Powerful Influence
After the oil bubble collapsed last fall, there was no new bubble to keep things humming — this time, the money seems to be really gone, like worldwide-depression gone. So the financial safari has moved elsewhere, and the big game in the hunt has become the only remaining pool of dumb, unguarded capital left to feed upon: taxpayer money. Here, in the biggest bailout in history, is where Goldman Sachs really started to flex its muscle.
It began in September of last year, when then-Treasury secretary Paulson made a momentous series of decisions. Although he had already engineered a rescue of Bear Stearns a few months before and helped bail out quasi-private lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Paulson elected to let Lehman Brothers — one of Goldman's last real competitors — collapse without intervention. ("Goldman's superhero status was left intact," says market analyst Eric Salzman, "and an investment-banking competitor, Lehman, goes away.") The very next day, Paulson greenlighted a massive, $85 billion bailout of AIG, which promptly turned around and repaid $13 billion it owed to Goldman. Thanks to the rescue effort, the bank ended up getting paid in full for its bad bets: By contrast, retired auto workers awaiting the Chrysler bailout will be lucky to receive 50 cents for every dollar they are owed.
Immediately after the AIG bailout, Paulson announced his federal bailout for the financial industry, a $700 billion plan called the Troubled Asset Relief Program, and put a heretofore unknown 35-year-old Goldman banker named Neel Kashkari in charge of administering the funds. In order to qualify for bailout monies, Goldman announced that it would convert from an investment bank to a bank-holding company, a move that allows it access not only to $10 billion in TARP funds, but to a whole galaxy of less conspicuous, publicly backed funding — most notably, lending from the discount window of the Federal Reserve. By the end of March, the Fed will have lent or guaranteed at least $8.7 trillion under a series of new bailout programs — and thanks to an obscure law allowing the Fed to block most congressional audits, both the amounts and the recipients of the monies remain almost entirely secret.
Converting to a bank-holding company has other benefits as well: Goldman's primary supervisor is now the New York Fed, whose chairman at the time of its announcement was Stephen Friedman, a former co-chairman of Goldman Sachs. Friedman was technically in violation of Federal Reserve policy by remaining on the board of Goldman even as he was supposedly regulating the bank; in order to rectify the problem, he applied for, and got, a conflict-of-interest waiver from the government. Friedman was also supposed to divest himself of his Goldman stock after Goldman became a bank-holding company, but thanks to the waiver, he was allowed to go out and buy 52,000 additional shares in his old bank, leaving him $3 million richer. Friedman stepped down in May, but the man now in charge of supervising Goldman — New York Fed president William Dudley — is yet another former Goldmanite.
The collective message of all of this — the AIG bailout, the swift approval for its bank-holding conversion, the TARP funds — is that when it comes to Goldman Sachs, there isn't a free market at all. The government might let other players on the market die, but it simply will not allow Goldman to fail under any circumstances. Its edge in the market has suddenly become an open declaration of supreme privilege. "In the past it was an implicit advantage," says Simon Johnson, an economics professor at MIT and former official at the International Monetary Fund, who compares the bailout to the crony capitalism he has seen in Third World countries. "Now it's more of an explicit advantage."
Goldman Sachs' Excuse
Fast-forward to today. It's early June in Washington, D.C. Barack Obama, a popular young politician whose leading private campaign donor was an investment bank called Goldman Sachs — its employees paid some $981,000 to his campaign — sits in the White House. Having seamlessly navigated the political minefield of the bailout era, Goldman is once again back to its old business, scouting out loopholes in a new government-created market with the aid of a new set of alumni occupying key government jobs.
Gone are Hank Paulson and Neel Kashkari; in their place are Treasury chief of staff Mark Patterson and CFTC chief Gary Gensler, both former Goldmanites. (Gensler was the firm's co-head of finance.) And instead of credit derivatives or oil futures or mortgage-backed CDOs, the new game in town, the next bubble, is in carbon credits — a booming trillion- dollar market that barely even exists yet, but will if the Democratic Party that it gave $4,452,585 to in the last election manages to push into existence a groundbreaking new commodities bubble, disguised as an "environmental plan," called cap-and-trade. The new carbon-credit market is a virtual repeat of the commodities-market casino that's been kind to Goldman, except it has one delicious new wrinkle: If the plan goes forward as expected, the rise in prices will be government-mandated. Goldman won't even have to rig the game. It will be rigged in advance.
don't compete; coexist
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'
Post edited by Unknown User on
0
Comments
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'
Alex & Bob Chapman were all over the current Goldman story on friday.
"This story" being something like the following:
Proprietary Program Used To Manipulate Markets Stolen From Goldman Sachs
Anyone who is surprised that Goldman and the US Government are working hand in hand to manipulate markets (in fact, are both controlled by the same shadowy group) simply hasn't been paying attention.
To quote a former Assistant Treasury Secretary himself:
Max Keiser: “Does the US Secretary of the Treasury work for the people or does he work for the banking system on Wall Street?”
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts: “He works for Goldman Sachs.”
Don't forget that the former Treasury Secretary, Hank Paulson, was himself, the goddamn CEO of Goldman Sucks.
I'm sure its all just a coincidence though.
GO back to sleep america.
WE have it all figured out.
If I opened it now would you not understand?
well there is a fine line between the two...“Does the US Secretary of the Treasury work for the people or does he work for the banking system on Wall Street?”
the people and the banking system are close to one in the same. it should be the job of the treasury to protect the American banking system. after all, thats where all or most Americans keep their money is it not?
not when they allow them to drive up prices like oil prices at our expense
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'
"they" did not drive up oil prices at our expense. the open market determines the price.
but assuming what you say is true, did they also drive the price down at their expense? or does it only work one way?
last summer when gas was skyrocketing because of speculative commodity traders the average barrel of oil was traded 27 times before it reached the consumer.....that's not just supply and demand or the oil market. this was covered in the short videos and article had you taken the time out of your busy schedule of making negative replies on here to view them....
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'
speculative commodity traders ARE part of supply and demand. you probably have a hard time grasping that concept. secondly, what does that have to do with Goldman Sachs or the treasury?
it wasn't a part of supply and demand until the past decade or so
read the article in the OP and watch the videos, i'm not gonna tie your shoes or wipe your ass, either.
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/08/business/08cftc.html
U.S. Considers Curbs on Speculative Trading of Oil
Reacting to the violent swings in oil prices in recent months, federal regulators announced on Tuesday that they were considering new restrictions on “speculative” traders in markets for oil, natural gas and other energy products.
http://online.barrons.com/article/SB124 ... ws_barrons
Commodity Speculation: Over the Top?
Position limits on speculators in oil and other commodities make sense.
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'
traders have always been part of supply and demand. thats how it works. what is your point? again, why aren't you bitching when those very same traders bring the price down? who should be held responsible for setting the price of Oil ? the government?
such the tough guy huh?
tough guy? you asked a question you can easily answer yourself in this very thread, i refuse to spoon feed you, if you were interested in an actual debate i might reconsider.
i also just gave you 2 links on the push for regulating speculative trading so obviously others feel the same way
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'
I'm asking your opinion, not what the links say. maybe you should consider actual debate instead of regurgitating google links. and yes, quite acting like an internet tough guy, you aren't one. people like yourself with Napoleon's message board disease only end up looking really foolish, so give it a rest.
regulating speculative trading is not the answer. allowing the open market to set the price is the only fair way to keep prices where they should be. again, why aren't you bitching when traders bring the price DOWN?
http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexch ... arkets.cfm
prices driven higher by speculative forces aren't necessarily a bad thing.
There are two key questions. One is whether targeting speculation is the best way to target bubbles. If low interest rates or inflation concerns are driving investors into commodities, that may make resulting price movements look bubbly, but limiting speculative trades in oil will only send money elsewhere.
Perhaps a gold bubble is less damaging than an oil bubble, but as with the housing boom, the bubble may be signalling more significant problems than speculation. Not long ago, Kevin Drum quoted John Hempton's dictum that banks intermediate the trade deficit, and argued that economic imbalances meant that a bubble was bound to form somewhere. Regulations to limit speculative trading, then, are merely palliative; slowing oil price growth isn't really "solving" any problem.
first, how am i being a tough guy?? how am i acting like Napoleon??
the only time i used google for anything i posted here in the past few weeks were the 2 links i gave you about regulating speculative trading. it's funny you talk about me needing an original opinion yet you keep parroting soulsinging about the google links :roll:
it's also funny you say you want to know what i think and not just regurgitate some google link when that's exactly what YOU did for 99% of your last reply!
i think the oil industry grew just fine before commodity speculation profits grew by 2,300% in the past 5 years
as for your question about what Goldman Sachs had to do with speculation, read the article i posted, here is a small excerpt
Goldman did it by persuading pension funds and other large institutional investors to invest in oil futures — agreeing to buy oil at a certain price on a fixed date. The push transformed oil from a physical commodity, rigidly subject to supply and demand, into something to bet on, like a stock. Between 2003 and 2008, the amount of speculative money in commodities grew from $13 billion to $317 billion, an increase of 2,300 percent. By 2008, a barrel of oil was traded 27 times, on average, before it was actually delivered and consumed.
as to what do they have to do with the Treasury Dept read the last 3 sections titled
Goldman' Sachs Graduates with Government Positions
Goldman Sachs' Powerful Influence
Goldman Sachs' Excuse
if you don't want to read the author has a short video on each page summing up what is covered in that page
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'
you are full of snide comments and acting like a know it all. like I said, give it a rest.
almost all of your threads are nothing but links with the contents copy and pasted. nice work.
you are obviously new around here.
99%?? thats fun. I asked you a direct question which you continually ignore. then I posted a very small part of the article which backs up my position. see how that works?
so what? for anyone who listened to that would probably be losing money. do you even know what the current price of oil is?
again so what? Goldman Sachs, Citi, BofA, JP Morgan, are all integral components of our economy. I have no problem with the Treasury dept working closely with this companies to prevent systemic failure of your economic system.
when you can cite something specific i may give you a listen. i'm a tough guy how specifically?
so? and i got none of them from google.
as i said before to soulsinging, before the old board closed to move here i was scolded by some for interjecting my own opinions with articles and links and told that i need to allow people to form their own opinion on them without mine included, now i get shit for trying to be accommodating, go figure. regardless, who cares if i copy and past a link and article? i thought this was supposed to be about information, not ego?
i guess me being new around here is relative, does it matter if this was my first day or my 50,000th? what does how many days i've posted here have to do with the information i'm posting? again you are turning it away from information and making it about ego
yes, jlew, i see how it works. when i copy and past an article it's a high crime, when you do it it's justified and within reason :roll: how did you find that article? did you use google or a search engine?
it seems to me like BoA, Citi, Goldman Sachs haven't been doing such a good job, eh? maybe they shouldn't have let greed get in their way then have their pals who now hold governmental positions bail them out at our expense while they keep their profits.
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'
no they haven't. do you have a point or just like stating the obvious? help me out
profits? what profits. all the major banks and financial institutions I mentioned have reported losses for quite some time now.
what fucked up point or position are you trying to take? that corporations are evil? that the government is evil? you have yet to take a solid position on anything related to this subject. out with it already. and if you need to post an article to back up your position, please do so.
you are saying the treasury dept should bail them out and work closely with them since they are key to our economy, i'm saying they obviously are pretty bad at their jobs so your point seems pretty invalid
did the execs of those banks keep their money? didn't 1 buy an area rug for over $80,000 AFTER the bail outs?? so yes, the institution reported losses but the execs kept their paychecks and bonuses, right?
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'
I dont like the government bailing them out but I don't like the alternative either. besides, many of the banks have or are making plans to pay back any money they have received. so if the government needed to temporarily bail them out, I have no problem with that. the alternative is the let them fail and start over from scratch. that could have taken decades as opposed to years.
the $80,000 rug you speak of was from Merill Lynch CEO who has since been fired AND paid for all the stuff in his office totaling well over a million dollars.
yikes, you really didnt know that huh? makes me wonder what else you dont know about this entire situation.
and i'[m the one who acts like a know it all, tough guy? lol
you're right, he got caught so it doesn't matter he did it.....in some alternate universe.
did the execs keep their paychecks and bonuses they made prior to the bailout? you failed to answer that.
they basically stole money. if i ran a company that was about to go under while pulling in millions a year then kept it all and received bonuses while taxpayers paid for my greed and mistakes you wouldn't see anything wrong with that as long as i was a banker or some other essential sector, is that what you're saying?
do you have a problem with how the bailout money is being spent being held so secret by the fed? or do you write it off as well?
have you even read the article yet?
oh, well, as long as they say they have plans to eventually pay us back...... :roll:
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'
yea you do. and its pretty embarrassing how little you know about the financial crisis. but we are all here to learn I suppose.
what the hell does this mean? you are bitching that someone bought an $80,000 rug and didnt get fired. well he DID get fired and paid 1.2 million dollars from his own pocket and you are still bitching? wow
prior to a bailout? yes of course they do. why wouldn't they?
no one stole money. we are talking about the US financial system. yes mistakes were made from top to bottom. would you like ALL banking employees fired and NO ONE get paid a salary? you are just bitching to bitch.
you keep ignoring the fact that ALL banks and financial institutions who received money have either paid it back or have a plan to do so.
but yes, lets not pay anyone a salary or maybe have the government control who gets a bonus. people like you really crack me up.
how the money being spent is not a secret. and again, much of the TARP money is being paid back
yes I did. what about it?
lol again, just bitching to bitch? YES, I think its outstanding that TARP is getting paid back. do you have a problem with this?
some more info on John Thain, the exec who spent $87,000 on the area rug, and these are the people you want the treasury dept to work closely with, jlew????
by the way, he wasn't fired, as you claim, after a 15 min conversation he agreed to step down
Before he came to Merrill, Thain was the CEO of the New York Stock Exchange from January 2004 to December 2007. Before that he had a career with investment bank Goldman Sachs rising from head of the mortgage desk (1985 to 1990) [6] to President and Co-chief Operating Officer (1999 to 2004).[7]
Thain reportedly was a front runner to head Citigroup.[8][9][10] Merrill Lynch and Citigroup sought new leaders following the sudden departure of their former CEOs after the disappointing performance in the third quarter of 2007.[11][12]
Thain arranged the sale of Merrill to Bank of America at $29 per share, a 70 percent premium over the price at which Merrill stock had been trading. The deal valued the brokerage at $50 billion. Thain was expected to be president of global banking, securities and wealth management, a new division at Bank of America which oversees its corporate and investment bank and most of wealth management business.[13]
In December 2003, interim chairman John Reed at the New York Stock Exchange told The Wall Street Journal that Thain would be paid "a plain vanilla number", about $4 million a year including bonus, with no "strange retirement" program like the one former NYSE CEO Dick Grasso was given.
Upon joining Merrill Lynch, Thain received a $15 million signing bonus. The firm announced that Thain would receive at least $50 million per year in compensation and could be paid as much as $120 million a year, based on the company's stock price. The Associated Press [1] in 2007 identified Thain as the best paid among the executives of S&P 500 companies, as he had received $83.1 million in compensation. In 2007 John Thain earned a total compensation of $83,785,021, which included a base salary of $750,000, a cash bonus of $15,000,000, stocks granted of $33,013,151, and options granted of $35,017,421.[14]
Thain suggested to directors that he receive a bonus in 2008 of as much as $10 million, because he "saved Merrill" by selling it off to Bank of America. After the compensation committee at Merrill resisted the request, Thain reportedly dropped his request on December 8, 2008.
On January 22, 2009, it was revealed that, in early 2008, Thain spent $1.22 million in corporate funds to renovate two conference rooms, a reception area, and his office - including $131,000 for area rugs, a $68,000 antique credenza, guest chairs costing $87,000, a $35,000 commode, and a $1,400 wastebasket. Thain subsequently apologized for his lapse in judgment, and reimbursed the company in full for the costs of the renovation[3].[3][4][5]
Thain accelerated approximately $4 billion in bonus payments to employees at Merrill just prior to the close of the deal with Bank of America. Bank of America was aware of the decision, as it was reportedly one of the pre-agreed conditions under the merger agreement. Speculation mounted that TARP funds were used for the bonus payments, but the TARP recipients are yet to disclose how TARP funds were segregated, or what they were used for.
Thain's memberships include:
* Howard University - Board of Trustees
* MIT Corporation, Dean's Advisory Council – MIT Sloan School of Management
* INSEAD – U.S. National Advisory Board
* James Madison Council of the Library of Congress
* Federal Reserve Bank of New York's International Capital Markets Advisory Committee[23]
* French-American Foundation[24]
* Board of Trustees of the National Urban League
* The Trilateral Commission[25]
* Yale University - John and Carmen Thain established the "Thain Family Café", which is part of the Yale University Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Library. The Café offers refreshments prepared with organic and local ingredients, secured through the Yale Sustainable Food Project. At the dedication of the Library in November 2007, Thain spoke warmly of Yale’s attention to its undergraduates (his daughter attended the University) and stated, “This was a way for us to give back and contribute to the student experience.”
* New York-Presbyterian Foundation - Thain serves as a governor [26]
* Republican Party - Thain is a prominent member of the party and a personal friend of Senator John McCain. Thain was a senior economic policy adviser to McCain and was considered a leading candidate to be his Treasury Secretary[27]. In support of McCain's unsuccessful 2008 bid for the presidency, Thain sponsored a number of fundraisers, including a $2,300-a-seat breakfast at The Regency Hotel on Park Avenue on December 14, 2007[2
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'
you realize John Thain was NOT fired, right? he agreed to resign after a 15 min conversation with BoA's CEO.
he also received over $83MILLION in compensation in 2007, did he give any of that back, i mean other than to pay for the furniture he bought, which was a little over $1million, i think he can handle it. and then last year has the nerve to request a $10MILLION bonus whil his company is going under!?!? nice people you want working closely with the treasury dept, jlew!!
he was NOT fired, jlew. i'm pretty sure he can handle $1.2million out of his own pocket since he made $83.1million in 2007
so a PROFIT WAS made, despite your claims that there were none?
they have paid back less than 10% of $700Billion, while it is a large amount not really when it's used in relation to how much they received.
why would i have a problem with a bank teller getting paid or a bonus??? i only have a problem when someone runs a compnay or financial institution so poorly they need a bailout or they will go under receiving tens of millions in compensation and bonuses. to me that is theft. if i make $80+MILLION and then need tax payer money to save my business did i really earn that $80+million?
lol <10% is faaaaaaaaar from 'much', jlew!
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'
thats no different then being fired :roll: relax skippy. CEO's can only be fired from the board and/or a shareholders vote. resigning is the fast and quiet way to get fired.
you just don't get it. first of all, when did I say I wanted Tain to work closely with the Treasury Dept? I said I wanted our financial insituations to work closely with the Fed...did I say Tain specifically ? and I also have NO problem with Tain making $83 million in 07. Merrill Lynch could run its company any way they see fit. who am I, or you, to say anything about that? I have the right to choose whether or no I will use Merrill services or buy their stock. (in 07). what the fuck are you bitching about? really?
and it just kills me how ridiculous you sound. First you are bitching that he bought a rug. you had NO FUCKING clue he was even removed from his job and PAID back 1.2 million he spent on office furniture. but even after finding that out, your genius response is that he could afford it. un fucking real.
you make it sound like Tain should receive the death penalty.
I'm referring to the point since they received TARP money. almost all have ben posting HUGE losses for the past 6 quaters. you really dont have much of a clue whats going on here do you? seriously tell me...I will be happen to explain whats going on and how this crisis happened.
first of all, only $350 billion of TARP has been used...of which $70 billion has been paid back and plans are in the works for the rest. Banks need the TARP money but DO NOT want it. and I can see why, they have uneducated people like you bitching about their every move. trust me, it is the LAST thing they want.
lol <10% is faaaaaaaaar from 'much', jlew![/quote]
its not 10%. go educate yourself about whats really going on..you really are making a fool of yourself. I'll help you out..read this..
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124524619467123215.html
The government got $68 billion Wednesday from 10 financial firms eager to escape the curbs that came with taxpayer-funded capital infusions.
Repayment of the bailout cash J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley and the other companies got under the Troubled Asset Relief Program essentially leaves them on their own to wrestle with the recession and financial crisis. Some firms said they plan to immediately start the tricky task of negotiating to repurchase warrants that the government received in return for the infusions.
...Among the financial firms that returned their TARP money to the government, J.P. Morgan repaid $25 billion, and Goldman and Morgan Stanley paid back $10 billion apiece. U.S. Bancorp repaid $6.6 billion, while Capital One Financial returned $3.6 billion and AmEx gave back $3.4 billion. Bank of New York Mellon Corp., Northern Trust Corp. and State Street Corp. also returned their taxpayer-funded capital Wednesday.
Not on the list were Citigroup Inc., Bank of America Corp. and Wells Fargo & Co., which haven't received permission to pay back their bailout money.
more good info
http://www.federalreserve.gov/bankinforeg/tarpinfo.htm
its not 10%. go educate yourself about whats really going on..you really are making a fool of yourself. I'll help you out..read this..
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124524619467123215.html
The government got $68 billion Wednesday from 10 financial firms eager to escape the curbs that came with taxpayer-funded capital infusions.
Repayment of the bailout cash J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley and the other companies got under the Troubled Asset Relief Program essentially leaves them on their own to wrestle with the recession and financial crisis. Some firms said they plan to immediately start the tricky task of negotiating to repurchase warrants that the government received in return for the infusions.
...Among the financial firms that returned their TARP money to the government, J.P. Morgan repaid $25 billion, and Goldman and Morgan Stanley paid back $10 billion apiece. U.S. Bancorp repaid $6.6 billion, while Capital One Financial returned $3.6 billion and AmEx gave back $3.4 billion. Bank of New York Mellon Corp., Northern Trust Corp. and State Street Corp. also returned their taxpayer-funded capital Wednesday.
Not on the list were Citigroup Inc., Bank of America Corp. and Wells Fargo & Co., which haven't received permission to pay back their bailout money.
more good info
http://www.federalreserve.gov/bankinforeg/tarpinfo.htm[/quote]
and you still insist i'm the one who acts like an internet tough guy with my comments and Napoleon like complex??? maybe you are projecting?
saying someone is fired projects an image of bosses being mad, accountability....resigning is not the same thing. also, i'm fairly certain if several others here said to you in a thread 'big deal, they were fired!' when they resigned you would take issue with it, but i guess the double standard you hold for yourself would come into play.
when did i say he should get the death penalty?? are you making things up again, jlew?
you never said he specifically should work with the treasury dept but you said you had no problem with their ceos, which he was.
my point goes further than the rug but thanks for making me laugh thinking about the big lebowski.
i have a problem with him, and other banking ceos, making that much money while their company is going under and profiting off financial crisis, especially when they are a large cause of it.
do you even know what you are arguing about?
i said:
maybe they shouldn't have let greed get in their way then have their pals who now hold governmental positions bail them out at our expense while they keep their profits.
to which you replied:
profits? what profits. all the major banks and financial institutions I mentioned have reported losses for quite some time now.
the execs kept their profits, which you admit and even say you have no problem with, so what i said was correct.
anyway, given all your red comments above it is clear you can't hold a civil discussion without throwing a tantrum so i am done wasting time replying to you. when the time comes you think you can handle discussing things like an adult let me know
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'
get over yourself. in this situation, Tain was forced out.
first you were bitching about him paying 80k for a rug, then when you found out he paid for that and many other things, you bitched about his 2007 salary.
his salary is none of mine or your business. UNLESS you are a shareholder (do you know what that means?)..if you are then you have every right to bitch and moan all your want. then come 2008, they were bought by B of A with government backing. well, then it becomes our business....and guess what...Tain was removed.
no he wasnt. soon after Merrill Lynch was purchased by BofA, Tain was NOT CEO. get it?
the fed is not a government agency? well I'll be damned. what are they?
ok, great. so what should be done?
absolutely. trust me, I do tis for a living. you are going to be hard pressed to teach me something. my stance is simple. I'm perfectly fine with the government keeping the US financial system afloat with bailout money and cheap loans. if thats what it takes to prevent the system from collapsing, so be it. what I also like is the fact that banks and financial institutions are coming up with plans to pay the money back. its painfully obvious that you really dont follow whats going on with specific companies. these banks do NOT want government money. it greatly limits their ability to run their companies.
this is like pulling teeth dude. how old r u? virtually NO banks or financial firms have turned a profit since accepting bailout money. have you not noticed the financial crisis going on?
I admit that banks have profit at some point in the past, prior to 2008. what the fuck is your point?
its really hard to debate with someone who has no fucking clue about what you are debating about in the first place. see my frustration? you have made it clear you know little to nothing about how the financial system works and how its deeply tied to the federal reserve. fuck man, you dont even think the Federal reserve is a government agency?
you are bitching about big bad companies making profits and keeping those profits!!! from who the fuck knows when. you are bitching about execs making alot of money....you are bitching about them buying expensive office furniture when in fact he paid for them himself. you think Tain quit his job with NO pressure for BofA CEO, the fed, or shareholders. he was FORCED out...in other words, he was fired. thats another thing, you can just fire a CEO of a publicly traded company. its not a simple.
if you would like to know how the system works, by all means ask. like I said, I do think stuff for a living and will be more then happy to teach you. this is a very important time in our countries his history. you will be far better off if you know whats going on as opposed to your constant MO of bitching just to bitch.
that message board phrase is very 2005. you should try some new material.
+1 is really popular...try that next time