Posted on 07/02/2008 7:29:19 PM PDT by Kozman
By far our most popular EPJ post, ever, has been our Does Goldman Sachs Run The World? post.
Here's an update on Goldman Sachs and their latest power move, the infiltration of the Barack Obama campaign.
Robert Rubin, former Co-Chairman of Goldman Sachs, is advising Obama.
Obama has named Jason Furman, his top economic adviser. Furman, with Rubin, was an aide in the Clinton White House, and worked there directly under Rubin. He is also a close associate of Rubin through their work together on the Hamilton Project.
Which doesn't mean that current Goldman employees aren't paying attention to Obama. David Brooks of NYT reports that:
"When you break it out by individual companies, you find that employees of Goldman Sachs gave more to Obama than workers of any other employer...Over the past few years, people from Goldman Sachs have assumed control over large parts of the federal government. Over the next few they might just take over the whole darn thing."...
(Excerpt) Read more at economicpolicyjournal.com ...
a couple of months ago there was a long sunday attack piece on robert rubin
by the new york times, of all newspapers.
the gist of it was, ok if robert rubin’s so intelligent,
why didn’t he warn us about the sub-prime mess?
isn’t Mr. Rubin on the Board of Directors of Citi?
If he is a new Politician..how Come Rubins around!!
Goldman Sachs is successful but not magical.
Every city block has a bully.
rubin was on an executive committee that provided advice and on the board.
sandy weil formed citi bank and he mentored charles prince to replace him in 2003.
but prince wasn’t well received by investors and the board.
when the sub-prime hit citi hard, rubin went to the arabs for money. citi may need more.
rubin supported prince until prince lost the support of the board.
rubin then assumed the position as ceo in a temporary capacity until a new plan and ceo can be located. i don’t think rubin likes to be the ceo.
citi may be split up.
i think sandy weil was going to come back...i don’t know i haven’t seen anything recently.
i haven’t read anything in the last month or so on city.
All the firms are mean. I don’t think GS is any more nakedly self-interested than its competitors. It has just been shrewder overall in the last decade or so.
Goldman, Sachs is the ultimate professional Greed Club. They invented Greed and have managed to control Greed in America as an art form. Imagine, John Corzine as head of Goldman Sachs leaves the firm with $100 million to become a politician in New Jersey. He didn’t make that fortune by selling stocks or giving stock advice. Goldman Sachs is not a penny stock manipulator, but I can tell you from personal experience that they never suffer from someone else manipulating a market, front-running a stock, benefitting from inside information or garnering a sweet deal. Its easy for them to always win, they just get there first!
The new CEO of Citigroup is Vikram Pandit, formerly of Morgan Stanley. Citigroup gave him hundreds of millions, ostensibly for his hedge fund, which they subsequently shut down. This is before any progress has been made. So whatever happens with the company, things worked out very nicely for him.
When you are a greedy pig, it would not be in your best interest to warn others how you are getting fat off their future!
Goldman Sachs partners of long standing are worth much more than $100 million. However, it is ridiculous to say that Goldman Sachs “invented Greed.” Greed was invented at the dawn of humanity and has never gone out of style. Many, many other corporations match GS for greed. Whatever. No major securities firm has made the real dough from stock advice in many, many years.
thanks.
whatever happens, it’s going to be a rough time of it!
I am sure that a lot of Goldman Sachs’ important customers would definitely be in the yacht category. And even a pre-IPO partner isn’t going to quite rich enough for a big Monte Carlo yacht. These days the Arabs, Indians and Russians are the ones buying the yachts.
Mark Twain’s big cool buddy was Henry H. Rogers, the Standard Oil partner and founder of the Virginian Railway. So whatever his talk may have been, he wasn’t exactly immune to the Gilded Age Newport cottage types.
He was at one time. He persuaded Clinton to sign on to the repeal of the Glass-Steagal Act in the late nineties. Phil Graham also signed on. This deregulation is linked to the mortgage collapse. Rubin then went to Citibank (or was it Group?) and got millions. When they had those terricfic losses he screamed like a stuck pig and asked the Fed for a bail out. Seems these millionaire Democrat populist (Corzine also) are for the privatization of profits and the socialism of loses. Goldman Sachs is one of the biggest contributors to the Dalai Bama campaign. What gives with these millionaires and their fondness for Marxists?
Let us remember also that GS is one of the top four oil speculators too. Of course it’s especially nice when they announce that oil is going to $200 a barrel by years end. Talk about making the market!
Rich people don’t just give $$ to the candidate they want. They make bets...
I do agree, the repealing of Glass Steagle enabled the sort of writedowns we're seeing (not speaking as a lawyer) and even the flagship of that effort, Citi, seems to be the worse for it. Of course, lots of wealth was transfered in the interim.
Nonetheless, it will be reincarnated ala Paulson and Pandit, apparently to create a tier of "super-financials" that will too big to fail by writ, not just by presumption, and I think the maneuver is basically a defensive move meant to either head off the intrusion of private capital into banking or tap into it for survival.
some would say, "investments."
Securities conglomerates are shrinking, not growing.
Where were you when “private capital” intruded into banking?
That is what I meant.
I am sure that the Arabs would be happy for Goldman Sachs to get the credit.
Should I draw you a picture? Maybe a hint: Wall Street has relocated to midtown.
You figure out the rest, you seem like you have all the anwers.
Much of Wall Street went to Midtown long ago. But Goldman Sachs got the state to pay it a fortune to stay put downtown.
Wall Street types are probably giving to Obama because they don’t want to get shut out when he wins; they want to contain the damage. The same could be said of other industries. These people are pragmatic. What don’t I get, in your opinion?
Meanwhile, the banks are laying people off, closing divisions and selling equity and/or assets. The era of the superbank appears to be receding, at least at the moment. Not a sudden newsflash.
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