Free Republic

If prudent investors can only make .5% on short term assets, how does Goldman Sachs prosper? Robert Rubin was a very powerful man. After 26 years and rising to the level of Co-Senior Partner, he left Goldman Sachs in 1994 to become Treasury Secretary in the Clinton Administration. His first major undertaking was during the Mexican bailout of 1995. ...Rubin drew criticism in Congress for using a Treasury Department account under his personal control to distribute $20 billion to bail out Mexican bonds, of which Goldman was a key holder. For 1998, the first year which we have public financial...

One of the things that makes me a moderate conservative rather than an extreme-right conservative is that I have never forgotten something my business-law college professor told us – that when government passes a new law or regulation that places limits on what businessmen or markets can do, it’s always because some people acted to excess and spoiled everything. Although the situation has changed slightly for the better, this kind of condition clearly exists in the area of top-executive pay (that of CEOs), and in the aftermath of Enron, WorldCom, Tyco and Global Crossing, cries out for some action.

<p>Anyone who is honest will admit it's impossible to know if this is a good war or a bad one. That is, if it will contribute to, or detract from, the sum total of human suffering.</p> <p>The success of the war against Iraq depends on how long it lasts, how many and what kind of people die, and how young Arabs and old North Koreans react. None of that is knowable. The violent war protesters on the streets of San Francisco are so moronic because they are certain when certainty is not possible. This war is a matter of subtle calculation, of weighing ever-changing costs against ever-shifting benefits.</p>

WASHINGTON - For Citigroup Inc., this town is not what it used to be. Federal and state investigations of its investment banking practices and talks with the Federal Trade Commission to settle predatory lending charges for millions of dollars show that the company is no longer politically untouchable. There was a time when a phone call from Citigroup's chairman, Sandy Weill, at a critical moment could be the difference between legislation dying and becoming law. Such a call in late 1999, when Mr. Weill persuaded then-President Clinton to compromise with Republican lawmakers, saved what would become the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act from...