Posted on 05/04/2009 8:06:51 AM PDT by dennisw
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York shaped Washington's response to the financial crisis late last year, which buoyed Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and other Wall Street firms. Goldman received speedy approval to become a bank holding company in September and a $10 billion capital injection soon after.
During that time, the New York Fed's chairman, Stephen Friedman, sat on Goldman's board and had a large holding in Goldman stock, which because of Goldman's new status as a bank holding company was a violation of Federal Reserve policy.
The New York Fed asked for a waiver, which, after about 2½ months, the Fed granted. While it was weighing the request, Mr. Friedman bought 37,300 more Goldman shares in December. They've since risen $1.7 million in value.
Mr. Friedman also was overseeing the search for a new president of the New York Fed, an officer who has a critical role in setting monetary policy at the Federal Reserve. The choice was a former Goldman executive.
The case illustrates what a tangle of overlapping interests can arise at a hybrid institution like the New York Federal Reserve Bank, especially as the U.S. government, in addressing the financial and economic turmoil, grows ever more deeply enmeshed in American business and banking.
Mr. Friedman, who once ran Goldman, says none of these events involved any conflicts. He says his job as chairman of the New York Fed isn't a policy-making one, that he didn't consider his purchases of more Goldman shares to conflict with Fed policy, and bought shares because they were very cheap.
Last week, following questions from The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Friedman, 71 years old, disclosed he would step down from the New York Fed at year end. He added: "I see no conflict whatsoever in owning shares."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.google.com ...
Gloom and doom ping list
America got p’unked in 2008 and we got a Socialist America. Way to go. Hope there are criminal investigations into how the banking crisis came to be and how certain people wound up with billions of taxpayer money.
Questions are all that will be raised. Questions as to Goldman Sach’s influence if not total control of the US government have the same practical effect as do question as to the legitimacy of 0bama’s birth certificate. Page 14 stories in 20% of newspapers, then it’s “see ya”.
This is how you get socialism. People see the corruption and decide that the market is rigged and turn to the government who winds up taking over.
Meanwhile, certain people in government are the real problem. The bankers were bailed out and the market was denied the opportunity to take care of itself by having people and institutions fail. Bankers and people in government are golf buddies...
This is how you get socialism. People see the corruption and decide that the market is rigged and turn to the government who winds up taking over.
Meanwhile, certain people in government are the real problem. The bankers were bailed out and the market was denied the opportunity to take care of itself by having people and institutions fail. Bankers and people in government are golf buddies...
Uh, the Federal reserve should raise a few eyebrows.
I think this is how you get fascism...
How golden is that after backing the resident it seems to have all paid off most handsomely.
President Obama continued collecting money for his 2010 Senate re-election campaign even after he resigned his seat from Illinois, including a maximum $2,300 donation the day after Christmas from a top executive of a Wall Street firm that had received a government bailout.Four contributions - $4,800 in all - were donated to the Obama 2010 fund on Dec. 26, according to Federal Election Commission reports.The money came from some of Mr. Obama’s top presidential fundraisers: Bruce A. Heyman, managing director at Goldman Sachs, which received a $10 billion bailout last year; Steven Koch, vice chairman at Credit Suisse First Boston; and John Levi, a lawyer at the law and lobbying firm of Sidley Austin LLP.
The donations are legal, but the timing is unusual because Mr. Obama formally left the Senate on Nov. 16 and already had a surplus in his Senate campaign treasury.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/mar/27/obama-raised-cash-even-after-leaving-senate/
From No Quarters...Let’s start with the numbers. Why is a first term Senator pulling down almost $300,000 a year from Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG, Countrywide Financial, and Washington Mutual? He has not even completed his fourth year in the Senate and received a total of $1,093,329.00 from these eight companies and their employees. (all data from OpenSecrets.org). John McCain’s numbers, according to OpenSecrets.org for the period 1990-2008 (i.e., 18 years worth of data) only collected $549,584.00. In other words, Barack is receiving $273,582.25 (and 2008 is not over) per year while McCain raised a paltry $30,532.44.
Want another shocker? Barack Obama has received more from one source–Goldman Sachs $542,252.00–than McCain has from all of the companies combined. Who the hell is more beholden to lobbyists? And why does a junior Senator from Illinois rate this kind of dough?
http://www.noquarterusa.net/blog/2008/09/21/baracks-wall-street-problem-is-now-americas/
“No doubt many donors give simply because they want to be part of history,” said Craig Holman, a campaign finance lobbyist for the non-partisan watchdog group Public Citizen.
“But donors and bundlers who represent special interests with business pending before the government and who dole out five-figure checks to the inaugural committee usually want a seat at the table with the new administration.”
Other bailed-out banks that have contributed to the inauguration fund include Goldman Sachs ($44,500) and JPMorgan Chase ($30,600).
I read not too long ago, and I will paraphrase the tale
that the Federal Reserve idea was originated by and sold to Congress by the leading bankers, as a means to solidify the interests of politicians that love to preside over government borrowing and the bankers that want to profit from providing the loans (buying and marketing the government debt).
BOOKMARK BUMP!
http://www.amazon.com/Creature-Jekyll-Island-Federal-Reserve/dp/0912986212
Is the best book on the Federal Reserve. It has 204 reviews at Amazon. You can learn a lot just from reading those reviews
The Feds justification for being brought into existence was to stabilize an anarchic banking system and prevent panics and depressions. It did a piss poor job this time around as it let banks and Wall Street run wild with bundled mortgages and credit default swaps. Senile hippie Greenspan was a cheerleader for derivatives, calling them exciting new vehicles for hedging risk
“that the Federal Reserve idea was originated by and sold to Congress by the leading bankers, as a means to solidify the interests of politicians that love to preside over government borrowing and the bankers that want to profit from providing the loans (buying and marketing the government debt)”
It has always occured to me that the best way to stamp out the influence of special interests is to restrict the scop[e of government power. If the Fed doesn’t exist, then private banks can’t manipulate the Fed into giving them money. The Fed is the problem, not some Chariman’s ties to some banker.
The ONLY viable alternative to the “communists have taken over government” theory is the “Goldman Sachs has taken over government” theory.
The textbook name for this oligarchy and it’s one of the principle reasons why socialism, communism, fascism or any other ism for that matter is doomed to eventudal failure.
Where, of course, they continue to blame Republicans for all of this...
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