Does Goldman Sachs own the US Government?

Today I decided to do a little research on Goldman Sachs, because I have been noticing the company’s name popping up all over the place during my readings of the financial crisis. So, here is a list of interesting Goldman Sachs facts, with links to their corresponding articles:

1) In September of this year, Warren Buffet invested $5Billion into Goldman Sachs non-voting preferred shares through his company Berkshire Hathaway. This by itself means absolutely nothing, but the significance will be made clear by reading the rest of the post. See Article.

2) Henry Paulson started working at Goldman Sachs in 1974, becoming CEO of the company in 1999. He remained as CEO of Goldman until his appointment as Treasury Secretary in 2006. Profile 1 (US Treasury) - Profile 2 (Wikipedia).

3) Of course Paulson had to take care of his old buddies at Goldman while disbursing a part of the $700B package. He has set aside a $10B cash injection for the company he used to run! See Article.

4) The man responsible for Henry Paulson becoming the US Treasury Secretary is a man by the name of Joshua Bolten. He worked in Goldman Sachs for 5 years from 1994 to 1999 and currently serves as George W. Bush’s Chief of Staff. Profile 1 (White House) - Profile 2
(Wikipedia)

5) The new Interim Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Stability and the man in charge of the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) Neel Kashkari, who will be responsible for overseeing the $700B bailout package, is another Goldman Sachs alumni. He was actually already working at the Treasury as an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for International Economics and Development, and will now play a dual role in the Treasury. Profile 1 (US Treasury) - Profile 2 (Wikipedia)

6) Kashkari in turn has tapped Reuben Jeffrey, an 18-year veteran Goldman Sachs executive, to serve as interim Chief Investment Officer for TARP. Reuben was already Under Secretary of Economic, Energy and Agricultural Affairs since June of 2007 and advises the Secretary of State on international economic policy. Profile 1 (State Department) - Article (Chron.com)

7) In September, after the $85 million US government bail-out of the American International Group (AIG), the world’s largest insurer, Henry Paulson pushed for a fellow Goldman Sachs-er to be appointed as the new director and CEO of the company: Edward M. Liddy. Board Member List (AIG) - Profile (Wikipedia)

8) The current Director of the National Economic Council is Stephen Friedman. He spent most of his career in Goldman Sachs, part of it as the chairman of the company, before taking on this role and a few others. PAY ATTENTION HERE: He is also the chairman of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (a banker in this position?) AND, is a class "C" director AND Chairman of the Board of the New York Federal Reserve (meaning he is elected to represent the public!). Profile 1 (Whitehouse) - Profile 2 (Wikipedia) - Profile 3 (New York Fed)

9) Robert Zoellick, the current head of the World Bank and former US Deputy Secretary of State, is a former Goldman Sachs managing director. Profile 1 (World Bank) - Profile 2

10) I saved the best for last of course. Lets take a look at who the top contributors are for the incoming president (Wikipedia)Barack Obama and his sure-to-lose opponent John McCain. Source: OpenSecrets.org

Obama 2008 Campaign Contributions

What do you know, Goldman Sachs is the top contributor to Obama's campaign this year. But don’t let this $739,521 fool you, they’ve actually donated quite a bit more to the Democrats, click here for the exact numbers.Let’s think about this for a second. Obama is always saying how he will support any measure that helps the average American (i.e. the little guys). However, 5 of his top 10 contributors (50%) in the 2008 election campaign are banks. His 10^th top contributor is Lehman Brothers, the institution which collapsed on the first black Monday, September 15^th, and arguably caused the ensuing meltdown. So would it be safe to say that Obama is thinking more about the banks (particularly Goldman Sachs) interests rather than the average Americans?

We Already knew McCain is a corrupt old fart that's owned by the banks and corporations, so its no surprise to find out that 4 of his top 5 contributors (80%) are banks. Note McCains third top contributor is Goldman. Click on the picture to go to OpenSecrets.org for more information.

McCain 2008 Campaign Contributions

I realize this is a long post, but it makes up for the fact I did not post all weekend. I encourage everyone to look all these people up for yourselves if you don’t believe me. Also, if I have missed someone over, please send me a note and I will verify and then add them. I will be continually expanding this post as I uncover more "Goldmanners" in government positions. Here is a link to the NY Times article which gave me the idea, and some additional readings on Goldman:

NY Times - The Guys From 'Government Sachs'
(They go too easy on Goldman in my opinion. Obviously there are huge conflicts of interest here but NY Times tries to play these down.)

Bloomberg - Goldman Sachs Paydays Suffer on Lost Leverage With Fed Scrutiny
(Bloomberg tries to make it seem like the poor Goldman executives will suffer pay cuts! Yeah right! One set of crooks standing up for antoher...)

Bloomberg - Obama Faults Bankers, Takes Cash

Other prominent people who were employed first by Goldman Sachs, and then by the US government include:

• Former treasury secretary Robert Rubin.
  

• Former President of the Export-Import Bank of the US Kenneth D. Brody.
  

• Goldman Sachs' graduate James Johnson served as president and CEO of quasi-government housing lender Fannie Mae.
  

• Dan Jester has been involved in most of Treasury’s recent initiatives, especially the government takeover of the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
  

• Steve Shafran, who is currently involved in the Treasury's initiative to guarantee money market funds.
  

• Other prominent Goldman executives currently employed by the Treasury include Kendrick R. Wilson III, Edward C. Frost and Robert K. Steel.
  

Markets Rebounding, But For How Long?

So we're back to discussing the financial crisis today. I have returned to the office after a short Thanksgiving holiday (in Canada its earlier), and it seems that the stock market is having an identity crisis today.

Although the good news of all the cash injections and bailouts being offered to the banks seems to be sinking well with the markets, they still seem to be having some digestive difficulties with all of these governmental plans. Also, I don't see anyone in the press stopping to ask the obvious question: Where is all this money coming from?

It would apprear that the authorities (both governmental and economic) would have us believe that throwing money at the problem will result in a shoring up of market confidence. But is this really a long-term solution? Will giving more power and money to the banks really solve the problem?

Another interesting question to think about it why the US government (and many others around the world) are now speaking about buying equity in "healthy" banks. If the banks are "healthy" as they say, wouldn't it make more sense to buy equity positions in not-"healthy" banks, so as to avoid further bank collapses?

There is something fishy going on here. First with Henry Paulson, Gavyn Davies and now Neel Kashkari (the newly appointed head of TARP) all being former Golden Sachs heavyweights. Also, look at the nine banks the government will mostly invest in: Citigroup, Wells Fargo, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America/Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs (of course), New York Mellon Corp and State Street Corp. (The other smaller banks will get peanuts)

Then lets look at who was just chosen to administer the $700B U.S. Treasury plan: NY Mellon Corp. Coincidentally, they are also about to receive $3B as an 'equity' investment from the government. What a stroke of luck...

Third, look who was chosen to bail the banks out. Just look at Paulsons face. Does this look like someone who is looking after your interests?

To conclude, there is something more going on here than meets the eye. I will be putting together some posts on these nine banks in the coming weeks in the hopes of clearing up some of the inevitable confusion surrounding the free lunch the banks are about to get...

In the meantime, this website gives you a nice overview of how the US government spends its tax dollars: http://www.federalbudget.com/

Notice the interest payments for 2006 were $405 billion. Compare that to the TOTAL amount spent on education and transportation combined: $117 billion. And this was in 2006!


More readings for the day:

Bloomberg - Paulson Plans to Invest in Thousands of U.S. Banks
(Ironically, the name of this article changed between earlier this afternoon and now. Basically this article discusses the equity injections into the banking system by the US Treasury)

Bloomberg - BNY Mellon Chosen to Administer U.S. Treasury Plan
(This article discusses the appointment of BNY Mellon as the Treasuries Treasurer...Ironic...)

Reuters - Buy Out Bosses Meet in Dubai
(Now what in the world could these guys be doing right now?)

Reuters - Even as Markets Rally, Executive Fear Bear Trap
(Finally, a decent article on the financial crisis)

International Herald Tribune - U.S. Investing $250B in banks
(Good article with a few additional details)

International Herald Tribune - After Early Rally, Wall Street Loses Steam
(Loses steam today, and by tomorrow or Thursday, we should be sliding again. There aren't enough pro-banking laws that were passed yet...)

BBC - Timeline of Global Credit Crunch
(Good stuff from the BBC, showing a timeline of events dating back to April 2007)