Goldman Sachs is Democrats' new target (Updated)

POLITICO ^ | Updated: 4/19/10 11:15 AM EDT | By MIKE ALLEN

[what's up]

GS has made their money. They don't mind now if the gate is shut behind them to prevent other speculators from making money on derivatives.

Notice no charges have been filed. Likely little or none will be. This is all about changing Gov't rules which will shut out the smaller guys from competing with GS in the future.

[freespirited]

I can see the SEC’s argument that Goldman withheld material information. Of course material information is withheld every minute of every day on Wall Street and the SEC and other so-called regulators do nothing. Once in a while they lift a finger to make an example of someone so the public is fooled into believing that regulation actually exists.

All show trials IMO.

[what's up]

Once in a while they lift a finger to make an example of someone so the public is fooled into believing that regulation actually exists.

Also, they are using this to pass NEW REGULATION to stifle investment banks.

[CutePuppy]

It IS a theater. They are using this to get some Republicans on board to push through Financial Reform bill. What better decoy than hated Goldman Sachs?

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2494787/replies?c=35

[Lorianne]

Goldman Sachs Will Be Sitting Pretty With Emanuel in the Obama White House
By: Timothy P. Carney
Examiner Columnist
November 21, 2008

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/TimothyCarney/Goldman_Sach_Will_Be_Sitting_Pretty_With_Emanuel_in_the_Obama_White_House_112108.html#ixzz0lbjz1xbK

[Doogle]

I really don’t know how to score this one.

...since the WH has a bunch of people from Goldman Sachs running around his administration...score this one as the camel getting his nose in the tent...it's all a ruse, timing was the key....they have been on radar since last year, now with Obamacare out of the way.....last weeks talk about Wall Street and this weeks release of bad doings at Goldman......the camel's front feet are in the tent......it's take over time.....investors,stock holders,board members.....will be shot at dawn,they must control

[Danae]

How the worn turns. Looks like all those millions donated to Democrats went to waste eh? So much for the power of the BIG BRIBE eh?

Think that will learn em?

No, me either.

[Brad from Tennessee]

I was watching Greta on FOX News tonight interview Sen. Judd Gregg. He said Goldman Sachs didn't need any TARP money after the meltdown. Treasury Sec. Henry Paulson told Goldman and several big banks they had to take the bailout because otherwise it would look like they gained from the crisis.

[Liz]

Sen. Judd Gregg on FOX News said Goldman Sachs didn't need TARP money after the meltdown. Treasury Sec. Henry Paulson told Goldman and several big banks they had to take the bailout because otherwise it would look like they gained from the crisis.

=============================================

GOOD FOR GOLDMAN, BAD FOR AMERICA (G/S the major toll collector on govt's red-ink railroad)
7/19/09 BY TERRY KEENAN, anchor of Cashin' In, Fox News Sat 11:30 AM.

EXCERPT G/S morphed into a commercial bank to take advantage of gov't handouts, yet Goldman is really a hedge fund on steroids, with trading accounting for 69% of gross revenue in the first quarter........ a big chunk of its trading involves US govt debt -- federal, state and local......

G/S has a huge vested interest in the US digging a deeper and deeper hole.........trading govt IOUs is big business.....one of the few growth markets on Wall Street. IPO's, M&A's, etc, have yet to recover but the US will borrow a record $3.25 trillion in the current fiscal year -- four times as much as in 2008.

With its biggest competitors out of business, G/S is a major toll collector on Washington's red-ink railroad.......a "debt tsunami" that will lift Goldman's fortunes. G/S plays on the bankrupting of America -- the more we borrow, the more they make........

.........but the American public should know this side of the G/S profit miracle. .......Through savvy trading and management, G/S set aside $11.4B this year to compensate its employees on a playing field cleared of its top competitors and soon after Uncle Sam bailedout G/S with $10B TARP -- and millions more through AIG, all paid for by taxpayers.

G/S benefits nicely from the govt borrowing binge that was triggered in part by the banking crisis that started in Wall Street's own backyard.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/07192009/business/good_for_goldman__bad_for_america_180130.htm

===============================================

Goldman is more than surviving the current financial storm. Recently it gave out billions in bonuses. G/S cultivates clout in Washington. And now they have Rahm---their very own WH toadie---pushing their agenda.

THINGS WE DO NOT KNOW ABOUT RAHM EMANUEL Did Rahm reveal all of his ties to financial institutions involved in Obama's trillion dollar federal bailout of financials?

Goldman Sachs Will Be Sitting Pretty With Emanuel in the Obama White House
By Timothy P. Carney, Examiner Columnist, Nov 21, 2008

EXCERPT Today, in these tumultuous times of bailouts and meltdowns when the investment banking leviathan needs Washington more than ever before, Goldman Sachs can leverage its most valuable asset yet White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel.

Traditionally a Democratic booster, and one of Barack Obama’s top sources of funds in this past election, Goldman has always had particularly strong allies in government.

Rahm Emanuel is one such ally. An interesting early chapter in the Goldman-Emanuel relationship took place in the setting of Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign for the White House. Clinton hired Emanuel as his chief fundraiser.At the same time, however, Emanuel was on the payroll of Goldman Sachs, receiving $3,000 per month from the firm to “introduce us to people,” in the words of one Goldman partner at the time. This is certainly a noteworthy relationship, but it’s one that has almost entirely escaped scrutiny. (snip)

In his four terms in Congress, Emanuel raised $74,750 from Goldman, making the firm his number four source of funds. Goldman has helped Emanuel. How has Emanuel helped Goldman? The most obvious answer, as mentioned in this column two weeks ago, is in Emanuel’s lead role in shepherding the “$700 billion” bailout—first proposed by former a Goldman CEO, Bush Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson—through the skeptical House.

Of course, back in the Clinton days, Goldman benefited from NAFTA and the bailout of the Mexican currency, with Emanuel pushing NAFTA through Congress, and Rubin hammering out the peso bailout.

Did Goldman improperly funnel money to the Clinton campaign by subsidizing Emanuel’s salary in 1992? Did Goldman’s help to Clinton spur the Democratic president to push NAFTA and the Mexican bailout?

The answers to these questions are opaque, and with Emanuel burrowed deep within the Obama White House, the continued relationship between Goldman Sachs and Obama’s right hand man won’t be easy to follow.

Watch which regulations of Wall Street Obama fights for. Watch where the bailout money goes.

SOURCE http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/TimothyCarney/ Goldman_Sach_Will_Be_Sitting_Pretty_With_Emanuel_in_the_Obama_White_House_112108.html

============================================

The late economist John Kenneth Galbraith blamed Goldman Sachs policies for causing the Great Depression of '29. In his book, The Great Crash, 1929, Galbraith, a key figure in JFK's admin, an entire chapter titled “In Goldman, Sachs, We Trust,” details the “large-scale corporate thimblerigging” that Goldman and other Wall Streeters practiced in the 1920s.

[Liz]

Despite the denials of Robert Gibbs the DNC would have had to know
about the SEC's Goldman Sachs suit weeks ago in order to construct
its fundraising and political ads around the controversy.

"First I do my Baghdad Bob impersonation, then I go
into my Vinnie Barbarino act. Who? What? Where?"

[HereInTheHeartland]

Which brain dead Republicans will fall for it?

[CutePuppy]

Well, there is always "hope" but so far nobody did. Susan Collins bought some time (just like Olympia Snowe bought some time and delayed ObamaCare for about a couple of months while Senate Dems were trying to make bill "bipartisan," until Scott Brown's shock in MA)

SEC Split on Party Lines Over Goldman Case (But Obama denies any involvement) - FR / WSj / NYP, #15

So, Reid will do a bluff hoping to intimidate some Republicans coinciding with Obama's pitch for the bill in his travelling salesman routine:
Reid to play chicken on Wall Street reform, daring GOP to filibuster - The Hill, 2010 April 20, by Alexander Bolton

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has decided to play a game of political chicken with Senate Republicans, daring them to kill a Wall Street reform bill.

Reid said he plans to move ahead with immediate consideration of the financial regulatory reform bill, despite a GOP pledge to filibuster the measure.

“Remember, there are only 59 of us, so if a single Republican is not willing to join with us, there will be no Wall Street reform,” Reid said. “Republicans will have killed Wall Street reform. I am confident that will not happen.”

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), a crucial swing vote, said Monday that she would support a Republican filibuster if Reid tried to advance a bill crafted by Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.).

But Democrats believe that even if Collins votes to block a bill, other centrist Republicans, such as Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe, may vote to allow debate. .....

The more time GOP can milk by extending "hope" to Dems for "bypartisan" bill, the less time Dems will have for other pernicious bills before November.