Posted on 05/30/2006 11:20:11 AM PDT by boryeulb
The Senate should reject President Bush’s nomination of Goldman Sachs CEO Hank Paulson for Treasury secretary. Under Paulson’s leadership, Goldman Sachs participated in ethically, and perhaps legally, questionable business practices. Paulson also supports the economy-killing Kyoto Protocol and has demonstrated little respect for private property rights.
On the ethical front, Paulson has refused to answer questions about his apparent use of Goldman Sachs’ corporate assets to advance his personal interests. In 2002, Paulson used at least $35 million of shareholder money to help environmental groups stop a “sustainable forestry” project in Tierra del Fuego, Chile. Environmental groups had delayed the project for years—to the point where financial stress on the project developer became acute and forced the sale of the land. Goldman swept in and bought the land, promptly turning it over to Paulson’s environmental allies.
The environmental groups involved in the transaction included The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), the actual recipient of the land donation from Goldman Sachs. At the time of the transaction, Paulson was a member of the board of directors of TNC—after the transaction he was elevated to chairman. Paulson’s son is now listed on tax returns as a “trustee” of WCS’.
When I confronted Paulson with these accusations at the March 31, 2006, annual shareholder meeting, Paulson and Goldman Sachs attempted to deny the involvement of TNC in the “land steal.” At a very minimum, however, tax records indicate that Goldman Sachs paid TNC more than $144,000 in consulting fees related to the transaction. Moreover, the TNC acknowledges the WCS as one of its “organizational partners.”
On the legal front, the Washington Post reported just last week that Goldman Sachs participated in transactions with scandal-ridden Fannie Mae that “that improperly pushed $107 million of Fannie Mae earnings into future years. The aim, [said federal regulators], was always the same: To shape the company’s books, not in response to accepted accounting rules but in a way that made it appear that the company had reached earnings targets, thus triggering the maximum possible payout for executives…”
Aside from the potential ethical and legal issues surrounding Paulson, he has decidedly anti-economy and anti-property rights leanings.
Paulson supports economy-killing global warming regulation. Paulson transplanted TNC’s pro-Kyoto position into Goldman Sachs, an investment bank with no known expertise in climate science. Now Goldman Sachs not only supports greenhouse gas regulation, but has said it will lobby for such policies. No doubt this will be much easier, with Paulson as Treasury secretary.
Private property owners should also be unhappy with Paulson’s nomination. Paulson’s TNC is the world’s richest environmental group with $3 billion in assets and is a major opponent of private property rights.
A series of Washington Post articles in May 2003 exposed the Nature Conservancy as more than just a “land bank.” In the past it has also acted as a broker of too-sweet-to-be-true land and business deals for wealthy insiders and corporate supporters, often at taxpayer expense.
In one scheme reported by the Post, “…the Conservancy bought raw land, attached development restrictions and then resold the land to state trustees and other supporters at greatly reduced prices. Buyers then voluntarily gave the Conservancy charitable contributions roughly equivalent to the discounts, sums that were written off from the buyers’ federal income taxes. The deals generally allowed the buyers to build homes on the land.”
As Treasury secretary, Paulson will be in charge of the Internal Revenue Service. Should he be in charge of the government organization that has oversight over any tax problems that TNC might have?
With a Republican administration and Republican-controlled Congress in trouble for abandoning conservative principles and a scandal-ridden Washington, Hank Paulson as Treasury secretary is the wrong choice at the wrong time. Since the politically tone-deaf President Bush is unlikely to withdraw Paulson from consideration, it will be up to the Senate to do the right thing.
Mr. Milloy is executive director of the Free Enterprise Education Institute. He publishes JunkScience.com and CSRWatch.com. He is a junk science expert, an advocate of free enterprise and an adjunct scholar at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
You can ask them, but don't get peeved if others choose to answer.
RIGHT ON!Corzine used to run that"Den Of Thieves",didn't he?Then he used his ill-gotten gains to "Buy" a Senate seat.Then he used more of same to "Buy"the Governorship of the MOST CORUPT STATE in The Union!!!!!!!!!!!!
you haven't answered any of them, you are just attacking me for asking.
For openers, you might care to look up their less-than-arms-length association with those lovely chaps at BCCI. Then, suitably warmed up, check on GS' role in the LTCM bailout, wherein GS traders actually downloaded LTCM's portfolio and were actively trading against it AT THE VERY TIME that Corzine was stroking McDonough (president of the NY Fed, if you've forgotten) about the necessity of the world's great financial institutions to act responsibly in the face of such a colossal (potential) crisis.
I can go on for quite some time, but that's enough for just now. Oh, one more thing, don't forget to have a look at their machinations during several of the tech-bubble IPOs. Lovely bit, that. And soooooo ethical, too (cough, choke).
These days, mate, if you shake hands with GS, be bloody sure to count your fingers immediately afterwards.
Not to mention Robert Rubin!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Stealth? Bush's tax cuts, extended out until 2010, have made this economy what it is, growing at 5.3%.
What in hell is the matter with you?
Unfortunately for those who are not members of the environmentalist cult, it looks like Paulson will be easily confirmed. Just like Hayden at CIA, whenever the Dems immediately signal approval I am suspicious. From this afternoon's WSJ Washington Wire:
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/
May 30, 2006, 12:18 pm
"Full Speed Ahead
"A speedy, lopsided confirmation is expected for Henry M. Paulson, President Bush’s choice to succeed John Snow as secretary of the Treasury.
"Paulson received immediate praise from senators in both parties, including Majority Leader Bill Frist (R., Tenn.) and Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, as well as House Republican leaders who’ve been eager for a stronger administration message on the economy. A spokesman for Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said Paulson will likely have scant opposition.
"Given the background check required, confirmation could come by 4th of July break, according to Republican leadership aide. –John Harwood"
pretty much correct. these wall street investment houses participated, and in many cases engineered, teh biggest financial fleecing of the american middle class in history, but it was covered up since it occurred under clinton. the largest transfers of wealth, from middle class pensioners who were advised to ride the bubble down, to the wall street gang, occurred in the late 90s.
"Yeah, Ron, the Rockefeller/Morgan/CFR/Trilateralist/STP/Firestone/Massengales Chevy is really running good today"
You don't get the cream of the crop applying for cabinet positions in a lame duck administration with just two more years to run.
Expect more of these "filler-inners" as the year progresses, and pray that they don't do too much damage in their relatively short time.
Why not? Running GS seems to be more training than that goofy Paul O'Neill had, who was off in the weeds with Bono and AIDS assistance.
All the reasons I'm reading on this thread have little to do with what he might do at Treasury, and more about his environmental hobby.
I'd like to hear his position on taxes, on trade issues, on the chinese currency peg, etc.
This place has gone completely looney!!
No more logical than a Michael Moore motion picture.
His newly adopted half-brother?
John McCain is going to love this guy -- is he on the Senate committee that will hold the hearings?
When he wakes up on a Wednesday morning with a democratic senate and congress.
No way!
Now Jefferson is another story.
I applaud those tax cuts, but Pres. Bush has still been very disappointing. The reason we have the excellent lower rates on dividends and capital gains is due to last minute congressional commitee maneuvering when the first tax bill passed. It was almost an accident, and not the focus of Pres. Bush, who pushed hard for free money "rebate" giveaways and undermined the entire principled case for tax reform.
To this day he talks of "stimulus", as if the economy was a drug addict in need of another fix. Reagan refused to let his people use the word "cuts". He insisted it was long-term tax reform to grow the economy. Bush has styled his economic program as an election cycle tactic, and destroyed the argument for permanent low rates. Now the Democrats are the party of fiscal responsibility in the public's mind.
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