The news that Goldman-Sachs is reporting “blow-out profits” is leaving some of the mainstream media pundits wondering how Goldman could rebound from “disaster” to record profits, while the rest of the country is queuing on unemployment lines and homeless shelters. Let’s revisit a blog I wrote in March , 2009. Also keep in mind the recent news that:
UBS and the Obama Administration are now “negotiating” on a UBS policy of hiding the bank accounts of billionaire tax-cheats.
Citibank is raising executive salaries 50% and giving bonuses larger than the pre-crash levels, while raising the interest rates charged to card users (i.e. tax-payers).
Organized Crime and Government (edited from March 31st, 2009)
It is certain that the present economic crisis is due primarily to the deregulation of Wall St. and the failure to regulate derivatives. It is just as certain that some people on Wall St. are making a lot of money with the tax-payer bailouts. So if we follow the old adage “follow the money”, what do we get?
Why did some Wall St. firms get bailed out and not others? Why was AIG allowed to keep bonuses and launder money to Goldman-Sachs, Citigroup and UBS? The map of key criminals reads like an old Mafia organization map, tracing connections between Wall St. and Government. This is the criminal organization that stole our savings and is stealing our tax dollars now:
Robert Rubin (AKA “The Accountant”): Former executive with Goldman-Sachs and 70th Secretary of the Treasury. He now works for Citigroup. He spearheaded the Clinton Administration effort to repeal the Glass-Steagall Act and exempt derivatives.
Larry Summers (AKA “The Apprentice”): Currently the Chief Economic Advisor to the President, former 71st Secretary of the Treasury and former assistant to Robert Rubin. He assured that derivatives would be exempted from regulations and was a big proponent of allowing Wall St. to “self-regulate”. How did that work out, Larry?
Henry Paulson (AKA “The Don”): the power behind the organization. He was the former CEO of Goldman-Sachs and 74th Secretary of Treasury.
He organized and coordinated the government response to the Wall St. bailouts with Goldman-Sachs. He made the decisions on who got money and who didn’t. For example, when Lehman Brothers and AIG requested bailouts, Paulson had a “sit down” with current Sachs CEO, Lloyd Blankfein in late Sept. 2008 and decided to take out Sachs competitor Lehman Brothers but bail out AIG. Who was AIG’s biggest trading partner? Goldman-Sachs. Too bad you Lehman Brothers, Bear-Stearns investors backed the wrong horse. Maybe you should pay more attention to who is in government than your portfolio. Paulson runs the organization now through his positions on the Boards of TARP and FSOB.
Tim Geithner (AKA “Babyface”): Former assistant to Robert Rubin and Larry Summers and now the 75th Secretary of Treasury. He helped Rubin and Summers destroy the regulation of Wall St. and exemption of derivatives. Recommended by “the Don” Paulson, he is now in charge of making sure the organization takes care of it’s own.
Mark Patterson (AKA “the Enforcer”), Geithner’s Chief of Staff and formerly of Goldman-Sachs (see Rubin, Paulson). Patterson strong armed Sen. Dodd into taking out the restrictions on bonuses to AIG and allowed AIG to pay-off lenders at full price such as Goldman-Sachs (see Rubin, Paulson), Citigroup (see Rubin) and UBS (see Gramm).
Ben Bernanke (AKA “The Banker”): Chair of the Federal Reserve. He withdrew the money and put it into TARP to pay off, sorry, “bail out” Wall St. firms such as Sachs and Citigroup at the recommendation of Paulson. He appointed Neel Kahkari, formerly V.P. of (you guessed it) Goldman-Sachs to head TARP. He negotiated the deal to save AIG and allowed all initial TARP money to be given to Wall St. without conditions.
Sen. Phil Gramm (AKA “The Assassin”): Along with Robert Rubin and Larry Summers, he spearheaded the Senate legislation to kill Glass-Steadman, regulations on trade and accounting and exempted derivatives. While Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee he exacted over 3 billion dollars of contributions to allies in the Government from Wall St. He was in a position to take over as “Don” but failed in the 2008 election. He has since become a lobbyist for… UBS, one of the firms AIG laundered TARP money to pay off.
So can we trust the same men in government who caused the economic crisis by enabling the Wall St. thefts of our future (Summers, Geithner, Paulson, Bernanke) to make sure our money now goes to solve the problem? Or can we expect that they will enrich the same people who stole our money with our tax dollars? Is it any wonder why Goldman-Sachs is now “whole” and less competitors? Is it any wonder why we can’t account for hundreds of billions of tax dollars already given to Goldman-Sachs, Citigroup and AIG?
Is it time to realize that we are being robbed by a criminal conspiracy that reaches from Goldman-Sachs to the Obama Administration to AIG and back again when the next round of pay-offs, I mean bail-outs occur.
That’s what I wrote in March and it is just a true today and it will stay that way until we, the people, take back our own money and take back our own government.
FiegerTime - Geoffrey Fieger's Blog 
If our species still exists a hundred years from now, the last five or six decades or so will be among the most embarrassing times in human history.
That is, if the truth is told down the line.
History and social science students will read the stuff in their texts about our era and say, “WHAT WERE THEY THINKING???”
And they’ll say to themselves, the only difference between now and the Dark Ages is that the men don’t wear tights and robes….well, most of them, anyhow.
Who the hell ever heard of a 50% raise in salary? My managers think I’m greedy if I want another buck an hour for saving lives. I doubt even a call girl could get the 50% increase for the best of favors she gives. And my feeling is that these guys are less honest than a call girl.
Oh sorry I could not resist this!
These guys may be old but they still could rock. And this song says it all.
Trillions of dollars for Bankers on Wall Street and an incredible amount of future generations wealth potential given care freely through the Federal Reserve fiat money (google search – “Federal Reserve Pumping”) but health care for the working class is “too expensive” and “fiscally irresponsible.” Obama makes sense, but special interests own Washington. School Boards are putting off building repairs due to $18K per teacher per year health insurance premiums. BCBS is going up another 9.6% this year alone. My Congresswoman, Candace Miller, responded to my letter stating even though 16% of the GDP is going to health care, that concern for the “stakeholders” must be taken into account before any law can be passed.
Does any one really believe that Bankers and big health insurance companies really care about the health of the economy or the health of your family? ALL they care about their own selfish economic interests. Period. And damn you all to hell, you lazy socialist whiners paying $1500 a month in health insurance premiums. Just shut up, take it like a man, and trust us ’cause we know what is best; like leveraging an entire nation’s financial system 30 to 1 on credit.
Reform is too hard? On Wall Street, how about some simple old fashioned criminal prosecutions. Probably “too expensive.” On health care a simple proposal: every Doctor and Hospital has to take 10% less on Medicare reimbursements across the board, and a federal law that if you don’t participate, you can’t practice medicine in the United States. Too radical? All the US doctors will leave the country to practice medicine in those single payer government systems overseas? Maybe they will all fly to Cuba or Haiti to avoid taking just a little less here?
I thought the old canard “too socialist” was finally dead, after the obscene “socialist” bail-out of the banks, but out it comes, like magic. Historical fact: on August 15, 1971, in a move widely applauded by the public and a fair number of (but by no means all) economists, President Nixon imposed wage and price control in peacetime. Such drastic measures were thought necessary in 1971. Inflation had been raging, exceeding 6% briefly in 1970 and persisting above 4% in 1971. By the prevailing historical standards, such inflation rates were thought to be completely “intolerable.”
Health Care costs and insurance premiums have risen steadily 2-3 times the rate of inflation for decades. But try to stop it or slow it and your a “socialist” like that Nixon fella. Make it clear to your representative that they will not get your vote unless they do the right thing.
“…..we, the people, take back our own money and take back our own government.”
Our country despite what many may think has a history of working within the law to produce results.
Working within that framework, how do you propose we take back our government?
Well said, Mr. Cusumano.
The hypocrisy of saying that health care reform is “too expensive” is glaring.
Big insurance and big pharma and all their pals have grown into unethical monsters badly in need of control.
I lived through one “restructuring” at one local hospital and saw how amoral their dictates truly are. They nearly destroyed our hospital, and they are going to destroy our entire health care system if no one stops them.
And they do have their cliques and their lobbyists, don’t they?
I’m afraid Mr. Fieger is right…the way to take on a bully is to go right at him.
And believe me, these companies and their pals are bullies of the worst kind.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
For your warped entertainment, it’s the lads of the old Monty Python series, with a song!
From all the comments above it seems crystal clear that the faith and trust in the government, and or what ever it does, is so dismal..that every act or step it takes, even in the sake of reforms of deeds of bailing out the country’s economy is showered with criticism.
This is not only because it has lost its credibility, but because expectations have changed, and it has become an escape goat for everything.
It was not only in here in America that we had bailouts, governments of China, France, Germany, India, Canada and Australia and some others in the same boat.