GIVE IT BACK GOLDMAN!

[Michael Collins]

Michael Collins: Give it back Goldman!
Thursday, 16 July 2009, 10:55 pm
Opinion: Michael Collins

Wall Street Welfare Queen Average Bonuses $1.0 Million Per Employee

Hacking its way through the financial jungle, Goldman always comes out on top. Cheers! Image

The Money Party at Work

Michael Collins

There are a number of stories out there about Goldman Sachs gaining unfair advantage in the financial markets. One concerns a former employee who allegedly swiped a special program to maximize automated stock trades. Questions were raised about the propriety of this since Goldman is hauling in tons of cash on a daily basis while others struggle. A variation of this story involves speculation that Goldman gets insider information through some internet scheme and uses that to maximize their haul.

But the biggest outrage is what's happened in public.

We Made Goldman Sachs what it is Today

If it weren't for our tax dollars and the cash flow that citizens provide for the United States Treasury, Goldman Sachs would have joined Bear Sterns and Lehman Brothers in the graveyard of financial high flyers.

But they were saved. Bush Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson came to the rescue when he assured that one of Goldman Sachs most important customers, the AIG group, survived a financial mess of its own creation.

Our original contribution was in the $20 billion range but then our elected representatives helped Goldman even more when they jacked up the subsidy to $85 billion. That's enough money to hire a workforce of one million people at a salary of $60,000 a year, plus benefits.

Had AIG tanked, Goldman would have been in very serious trouble. In September 2008, Paulson, a former CEO of Goldman met with Tim Geithner, soon to be President Obama's Secretary of the Treasury, when Geithner headed up the New York Federal Reserve Bank. Goldman's CEO was "the only Wall Street chief executive" at the critical meeting.

This back room meeting was exposed by Gretchen Morgenson in an outstanding New York Times article: "Although it was not widely known, Goldman, a Wall Street stalwart that had seemed immune to its rivals’ woes, was A.I.G.’s largest trading partner … A collapse of the insurer threatened to leave a hole of as much as $20 billion in Goldman’s side, several of these people said." Sept. 27, 2008

While Lehman Brothers got nothing, AIG got some serious cash and survived, thus assuring Goldman's survival. Secretary Paulson and the NY Fed's Geithner came through with the guarantees. When Paulson left with Bush, Geithner showed up to take Paulson's place at Treasury. The beat goes on.

It's The Money Party at work. They have no permanent friends or permanent enemies, just permanent interests. Goldman's interest was turning a sow's ear, the financial collapse that they helped create, into a silk purse. Mission accomplished.

Goldman's chief financial officer attributed the $39 million a day income to the firm's reputation for "very, very strong culture of risk management." Is he kidding? Their success is based on that $85 billion of our money that saved their asses. Goldman's average $1.0 million per employee bonuses wouldn't exist were it not for citizens paying for their survival.

Have you received your thank you card from Goldman Sachs yet?

Don't hold your breath. But you can be sure that when they've screwed up what people are trying to pass off as a recovery, they'll be back at our Treasury Department again for the next big bailout courtesy of you know who.

We have no government left. It's simply a welfare agency for the most favored failed financial giants; a paper money producer to wrap the ugly truth in fictional dollars; a subprime governance scheme developing Potemkin Villages everywhere.

It's socialism for the ultra rich and survival of the fittest for the rest of us.

Millions get sick, suffer and die without medical coverage. But Goldman bags $39 million a day in the Wall Street casino. Millions of hardworking citizens lose their jobs and can't find work. But Goldman gives out bonuses averaging $1.0 million per employee. Their survival is based entirely on our assistance but when citizens need some help, there's no room at the inn.

And count on it, nobody in power will do a single thing about it. Not one thing.

Fairness, equity, civility, good taste, discretion, opportunity, even the least degree of common decency -- all dead -- thanks to The Money Party.

END

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[BO]

"Fairness, equity, civility, good taste, discretion, opportunity, even the least degree of common decency -- all dead -- thanks to The Money Party."

Gotta stop blaming the leadership and start blaming ourselves. The American people are not victims--they're co-conspirators. The greed in this country doesn't start and stop with 'The Money Party'. Stealing and cheating define american culture. Getting something for nothing IS the American dream--the Money Party doesn't own it.

[waldopaper]

It's the Money Party that passed this shit off as "capitalism," and gullible USAns bought into it as a result of nearly a century of brainwashing by the Fats. If USAns had the political acuity of a small turtle, they would have seen through this before now. Yet, there is still this "liberal-conservative" crap going on... and the stupids are buying into it.

Methinks it is a case of the victims believing they were co-conspirators... until Mugsy left them holding the bag.

[Michael Collins]

BO, I learned something from a hart core populist - it is "us" versus "them." The minute the leaders tie their reckless schemes to "us" through collective responsibility, we lose. The majority of Democrats and Republicans opposed the Iraq invasion UNTIL.the big lies were rolled out - NU KU LER weapons, WMD, etc. LIes that fooled the people. The response along the margins was just enough to carry the war forward. The people don't need the perseverance of internet folks like us. The obligation is on the leaders to tell the fucking truth. They need a contract and they must be held responsible when things blow up. http://electionfraudnews.com/News/Election/contract.htm Screw collective responsibility. It's negligence and dereliction of duty to lie to the public. That responsibility is with the liars not the subjects of the lie.

Waldo, how about that Max! I love this clip. He riffs on it so intensely. What a deal. This one will go viral!

[waldopaper]

I HOPE it goes viral! We are all being asked to knuckle under to extortion... which is EXACTLY what that "WMD" shit was. BUT... anybody who believed that... even at the time it was rolled out... had to be dumber that a bag of hammers. I had MANY heated discussions about this... right up to the invasion.

Me: he aint got dick. nothin. zippo.
Them: how do YOU know? why all the experts say...
Me: ...exactly what they were paid to say. we bombed the shit out of anything bigger than a breadbox in 90. we got spy satellites lookin up they asses and hello-copters buzzing over every square inch. He aint got dick.

We really gotta take SOME responsibility... but I'm NOT saying that lets the war criminals or the financial bandits off the hook at all. I think they should all be frog-marched to the Hague... for which they oughta be damn grateful for not staying in the US to get the lights-out juice. Or better yet- shot. If we weren't so fekkin stoopid, it would be a lot harder for the crooks to pull this off.

[BO]

I dunno, Michael. I've always thought Americans deserved the leadership they got. Guess I don't see much difference between the way my neighbors operate, and our leadership. They both seem equally corrupt to me. That said, it's hard to define what them is when them includes most everybody I know.

I truly see the US as being a lost cause and i reckon that makes me part of the problem too. But I don't see 'us' as being much larger than maybe 10% of the population. And those are not good odds to lay your chips on if you're betting on a winner. Maybe I just need to watch 'the alamo' again.

I admire your efforts Michael. Our idealism needs to be expressed if not for our own sanity. But when it comes to trying to force our leadership to tell the truth, there are just too few demanding it. Americans it seems, have better things to do.

[waldopaper]

You might be interested in Matt Tabbi's take on this. I got one small bone to pick with it though:

"...The difference is that Boeing and Electric Boat didn’t start the war...."

ummm... I think they DID.

[BO]

That photo of the GS CEO at the top of Matt's article makes me want to join the local Nazi party. Talk about a smug little piece o' shit.

Twas the American Zeitgeist that started the war. But then I think that's what you meant. There's no difference between Boeing and Goldman Sachs, or WalMart, or GE, or any other DOW company--they're all joined at the hip with US, Inc.

Funny though, that GS can record a profit when it still has 47 trillion bucks worth of toxic debt it hasn't accounted for. In fact, there's something like 700 trillion worth globally that needs to be 'de-leveraged.' So, these GS guys are just stealing all the silverware before the Titanic goes down.

This country has never seen corruption like this before. Makes the robber baron years look like child's play.

[waldopaper]

More than that... I believe there was some collusion by Boeing technicians to lend their Global Hawk technology to guide the planes to their targets. There were several of them aboard the doomed aircraft. Raetheon folks too. Thought they were collaborators until Mugsy left them holding the bag.

It WAS the Amerikkkan Zeitgeist at the very least. We were ALL good Germans... until die Flotte left us holding the bag. OF COURSE a lot of us were duped into it... because we believed what we WANTED to believe... and MOST of us are still doing so to this very day. If you point out the obvious, you get the "negativity" speech.

And of course we ALL know there is no fucking way $700 trillion is going to be "de-leveraged." It's just a matter of how many billion people are going to be left holding the bag. I like the Titanic metaphor...

Except they aint just stealin the silverware. They are loading up ALL the available lifeboats with china and carpet and paintings and the contents of the safes and the fucking safes too. Women and children?? Wooo nooo... then we would have to unload some of this valuable carpet. It's all about gold and oil... (and whatever other commodity- like food and water- that needs to "back the reserve currency").

Our VERY LIVES aint worth shit.

[Michael Collins]

BO, I'm trying to imagine your neighbors - sounds pretty bad. I hope they're not invading and stealing from you at the same time. Actually, you said they're like our leaders which means they'd get somebody else to do it. I'm somewhat, of an optimistic, with strong qualifications but the "us" versus "them" thing is as much a rhetorical stance as it is a description. I'm much softer on the descriptive validity.

Walso "Our VERY LIVES aint worth shit. " - so true. There's a growing coven of pro PTB trolls out there who like to go off on this one like it's hysterical (my variation is "We're nothing to them"). Fuck them. Can't they see the obvious - we get hormones in our water (might explain a few things), poison in our food, and the system is set up so people get to experience the "suffering unto death," as the guy said, just because they don't have insurance. And that's domestically. We're actually treated better than the rest of the world since we don't get the "shock and awe." But wait, I forgot let it happen. We don't get sustained shock and awe for real. We get the virtual version with the nonstop trash that fills the popular media and Goldman gets the bonuses.