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Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon demonstrated his social enlightenment in Davos this week by announcing that the white-shoe investment bank would no longer help companies with exclusively white, male boards go public—as long as its boycott doesn’t hurt business too much. “Starting on July 1 in the U.S. and Europe, we’re not going to take a company public unless there’s at least one diverse board candidate, with a focus on women,” Mr. Solomon said on CNBC Thursday. “We might miss some business, but in the long run, this I think is the best advice for companies that want to drive...

Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon said Thursday that the powerful investment bank will only finance initial public offerings (IPOs) for companies that have at least one nonwhite male board member. Solomon said during a Thursday interview with CNBC that as of July 1 in the U.S. and Europe, Goldman “is not going to take a company public unless there is at least one diverse board candidate, with a focus on women.” “Diversity on boards is a very very important issue, and we've been very very focused on it and so we're trying to find ways to encourage that,” Solomon told...

Goldman Sachs surveyed dozens of its clients and found that 87% expect President Trump to win the election this year. The bank’s strategists polled attendees at a conference this week and received an average of 160 responses to their questions. Only 5% of respondents expect a US recession this year, 45% expect a bear market in 2021, and 67% expect the Federal Reserve to hold interest rates steady this year. The banking titan’s investment researchers polled attendees of its Global Strategy Conference in London this week, garnering an average of 160 responses to each of their questions. Asked whether Trump...

The onetime top aide to the Clintons earns some $15 million dollars annually........but the icy anchor’s cachet has diminished significantly with Hillary’s loss and his cadre of Democratic friends on the outs in Trump's Washington. “He doesn’t bring much to the table anymore,” said an ABC insider. It’s not clear why he’s sitting there." ABC is under fire for paying Clinton activist singer Katy Perry $25 million to be a judge on just one season of a revamped “American Idol.” Stephanopoulos was initially valuable; with unprecedented access to the Clintons and to the Obama WH....he'd phone Rahm Emanuel -- a...

Given the proclivity of Republican politicians to deride the federal government and the bureaucrats that fill its ranks, it stands to reason Democrats would be more likely to seek out Uncle Sam for employment. And that is true. But only barely. In a recent survey conducted by Government Business Council, the research arm of Government Executive Media Group, 44 percent of respondents identified as Democrats or Democratic-leaning independents, while 40 percent identified as Republicans or Republican-leaning independents. The remaining respondents were undecided or did not identify with either party, though a plurality of them said they were “conservatives.” Top-level management...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Goldman Sachs reported a fourth-quarter profit of about $1 billion on Wednesday, reversing a loss from the third quarter and topping expectations. But the company's revenue declined from a year ago and missed analysts' forecasts. Slashing compensation and nearly $1.4 billion in other expenses helped Goldman Sachs (GS, Fortune 500) generate its nearly nine-figure profits last year. Chief financial officer David Viniar said cost-cutting won't be the firm's primary focus going forward. "It's not possible to cut expenses as a means to prosperity," he said during a conference call following the earnings release.

Bobby Montoya October 31, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Girl Scouts of Colorado has announced that 7-year-old Bobby Montoya, who was initially turned away from a local Girl Scout chapter on the grounds that he is not a girl, will be allowed to join since he “identifies” as a girl. Rachelle Trujillo, vice president of communications with Girl Scouts of Colorado, told CNSnews.com that any child who is “living life as a girl” is eligible for membership in the organization. “We have privacy rights that we are very respectful of with families,” Trujillo said.  “We do not require proof of gender when...

MAY 20, 2010 Whitman's Lead Narrows in California Race BY STU WOO Meg Whitman appears to have lost much of her wide lead in the race to be the Republican contender in California's November gubernatorial election. Two months ago, Ms. Whitman looked to be cruising toward the Republican nomination. Polls showed the former eBay Inc. chief executive leading her main opponent, state insurance commissioner Steve Poizner, by 50 percentage points. With three weeks to go before the June 8 primary, Mr. Poizner is pulling off an unexpected rally. A survey to be released Thursday shows Ms. Whitman's advantage dwindling to...

Goldman Sachs Rigged Stock Market Crash Stock-Markets / Market Manipulation May 09, 2010 - 12:46 PM By: Ellen Brown Last week, Goldman Sachs was on the congressional hot seat, grilled for fraud in its sale of complicated financial products called “synthetic CDOs.” This week the heat was off, as all eyes turned to the attack of the shorts on Greek sovereign debt and the dire threat of a sovereign Greek default. By Thursday, Goldman’s fraud had slipped from the headlines and Congress had been cowed into throwing in the towel on its campaign to break up the too-big-to-fail banks. On...

Bloomberg Businessweek reports that Goldman Sachs Group has been signing on “former lawmakers and crisis specialists” to help the firm combat a wave of negative publicity and Congressional outrage. [map] The new advisers include Mark Fabiani of the public relations firm Fabiani & Lehane. Nicknamed the “Master of Disaster,” Fabiani helped President Bill Clinton handle the Whitewater investigation. Fabiani was also Al Gore’s deputy campaign manager for communications and strategy during the 2000 presidential campaign and served as the campaign spokesperson during the Florida recount. Since 2002, he has been a consultant to football’s San Diego Chargers, helping them with...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senators negotiating financial regulatory reform legislation said on Sunday they were close to a bipartisan agreement, as the White House said fraud charges against Wall Street titan Goldman Sachs highlighted the need for reform. Democratic Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd and Senator Richard Shelby, the panel's top Republican, told NBC's "Meet the Press" they were talking through the weekend to try to reach agreement on a bill aimed at preventing future taxpayer bailouts of financial firms. "We're getting there, we're close, we've got more work to do," Dodd said. "I hope can get the votes tomorrow...

In the Galleon Group insider trading case, the focus has now turned to Warren Buffett’s Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) deal, which came during the peak of the financial crisis. The Wall Street Journal, citing a person close to the situation, has reported that before the public announcement of the deal where Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK.A) invested $5 billion in Goldman Sachs Group, a director at the bank tipped off Galleon Group’s Raj Rajaratnam about the deal.

In 2001, just after Greece was admitted to Europe’s monetary union, Goldman helped the government quietly borrow billions, people familiar with the transaction said. That deal, hidden from public view because it was treated as a currency trade rather than a loan, helped Athens to meet Europe’s deficit rules while continuing to spend beyond its means... Instruments developed by Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and a wide range of other banks enabled politicians to mask additional borrowing in Greece, Italy and possibly elsewhere. In dozens of deals across the Continent, banks provided cash upfront in return for government payments in the...

Wall Street bankers once again are the target of populist outrage, this time over the news that Goldman Sachs (GS), Citigroup (C), JPMorgan Chase (JPM), and others are receiving limited doses of the H1N1 swine flu vaccine

Flying home to New Jersey from Chicago after the first two days at his new job, Sergey Aleynikov was prepared for the usual inconveniences: a bumpy ride, a late arrival. He was not expecting Special Agent Michael G. McSwain of the F.B.I. At 9:20 p.m. on July 3, Mr. McSwain arrested Mr. Aleynikov, 39, at Newark Liberty Airport, accusing him of stealing software code from Goldman Sachs, his old employer. At a bail hearing three days later, a federal prosecutor asked that Mr. Aleynikov be held without bond because the code could be used to “unfairly manipulate” stock prices.

The bank has instructed Wall Street law firm Chadbourne & Parke to pursue blogger Mike Morgan, warning him in a recent cease-and-desist letter that he may face legal action if he does not close down his website. Florida-based Mr Morgan began a blog entitled "Facts about Goldman Sachs" – the web address for which is goldmansachs666.com According to Chadbourne & Parke's letter, dated April 8, the bank is rattled because the site "violates several of Goldman Sachs' intellectual property rights" and also "implies a relationship" with the bank itself. Unsurprisingly for a man who has conjoined the bank's name with...

Goldman Sachs, Wall Street's most powerful investment bank, will this week announce asset writedowns worth about $3bn (£1.5bn), its biggest jolt to date from the crisis threatening to engulf the world's financial markets. Goldman, which has largely thrived amid the turmoil elsewhere on Wall Street, is expected to report a fall in first-quarter earnings of about 50 per cent. The writedown will underline how the financial turbulence is now affecting even the most stellar performers. The bank's $3bn write­down will be based partly on the declining value of its 4.9 per cent stake in Industrial & Commercial Bank of China...

FOR decades now, as a writer, economist and scold, I have been receiving letters from thoughtful readers. Many of them have warned me about the dangers of a secret government running the world, organized by the Trilateral Commission, or the Ford Foundation, or the Big Oil companies or, of course, world Jewry. I always scoff at these letters. The world is far too complex a place to be run by any one group. But the closest I have recently seen to such a world-running body would have to be a certain large investment bank, whose alums are routinely Treasury secretaries,...

...Desperate for tax revenue, cities and towns across the country now routinely take property from unwilling sellers to make way for big-box retailers. Condemnation cases aren't tracked nationally, but even retailers themselves acknowledge that the explosive growth of the format in the 1990s and torrid competition for land has increasingly pushed them into increasingly problematic areas -- including sites owned by other people... [A] shareholder resolution: "adopt a policy for land procurement and use that incorporates social and environmental factors," particularly, the wishes of local property owners and community groups.... "If the company continues to operate in this manner, with...