A little more than a week ago, I drew your attention to the superbly written essay,
"America's Ruling Class -- And the Perils of Revolution," by retired Boston University professor Angelo Codevilla. If you haven't haven't had an opportunity to read it yet, please do. Because it provides one of the most important analytical frameworks of our time.
Because we've been beaten over the head with Marxist
"class conflict" for so long, most of us simply ignore the idea of class altogether. But it was in fact the classical liberals who pioneered class theory, not the Marxists (twisted version). Codevilla' essay is a brilliant analysis of American society from the perspective of
"libertarian class theory": the classical liberal view of politics being a struggle between 2 adversarial classes -
the ruling elite vs. the rest of us.
"We the people" ignore the countless backdoor deals and shady machinations of the "ruling class" at our own peril. We've developed a strangely high tolerance for political corruption too. Hey, as long as it's
"our party," it can't be all that bad ... right?
Stop and think about this for a moment ... Think back to the Nixon administration for example, and count the number of people who have come and gone through Washington's revolving door, time and time again, as part of one administration after another. It's pretty much the same people, connected to the same groups, isn't it? The Obama administration is virtually Clinton's administration, Clinton's was virtually Carter's, GWB's administration connected to Ford and Nixon ... same as it ever was.
Do you really believe that out of 330+ million American citizens, decade after decade, this small group of people just happened to be the
"best and brightest?" I mean seriously, what are the odds?
Presidents and Founding Fathers Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson both warned of the
"banking elite." In fact, the Second Bank of the United States (Federal Reserve) was a major campaign issue, of which President Jackson described as "the bank is trying to kill me, but I will kill it!" He further charged "beyond question that this great and powerful institution [Second Bank of the United States] had been actively engaged in attempting to influence the elections of the public officers by means of its money." His re-election campaign slogan was
"JACKSON and NO BANK!" Once re-elected, he vetoed the bank's charter and promptly shut it down.
Boy, if you talk like Thomas Jefferson or Andrew Jackson today, you're mockingly labeled a
"conspiracy theorist," someone not considered serious. Do we really trust our elite that much? Do you really believe it's sheer coincidence that
Goldman Sachs and the
U.S. Treasury are run by the same people? Would you like to buy a bridge?
Economist and historian Robert Higgs offers more insight into
"America's Ruling Class -- And the Perils of Revolution."
http://the-classic-liberal.com/aig-goldman-sachs-bailout/
The
New York Times has published an explosive story about the bailout of AIG and Goldman Sachs.
Timothy Geithner, head of the New York Federal Reserve at the time, agreed to lend AIG $85 billion in bailout cash. He also awarded the banks trading with AIG 100 cents on the dollar for debt insurance they bought from the firm.
But not only were the banks made whole (with money they do not have to pay back), but AIG had to sign a legal waiver prohibiting them from suing Goldman Sachs over mortgage deals the bank knew to be flawed.
When the government began rescuing it from collapse in the fall of 2008 with what has become a $182 billion lifeline, A.I.G. was required to forfeit its right to sue several banks — including Goldman, Société Générale, Deutsche Bank and Merrill Lynch — over any irregularities with most of the mortgage securities it insured in the precrisis years.
But after the Securities and Exchange Commission’s civil fraud suit filed in April against Goldman for possibly misrepresenting a mortgage deal to investors, A.I.G. executives and shareholders are asking whether A.I.G. may have been misled by Goldman into insuring mortgage deals that the bank and others may have known were flawed.
Why make the banks whole while requiring a waiver from AIG? It simply doesn't make sense. Especially since we're talking about taxpayer money.
The documents also indicate that regulators ignored recommendations from their own advisers to force the banks to accept losses on their A.I.G. deals and instead paid the banks in full for the contracts. That decision, say critics of the A.I.G. bailout, has cost taxpayers billions of extra dollars in payments to the banks. It also contrasts with the hard line the White House took in 2008 when it forced Chrysler’s lenders to take losses when the government bailed out the auto giant.
“Even if it turns out that it would be a hard suit to win, just the gesture of requiring A.I.G. to scrap its ability to sue is outrageous,” said David Skeel, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania. “The defense may be that the banking system was in trouble, and we couldn’t afford to destabilize it anymore, but that just strikes me as really going overboard.”
Could it have to do with the fact that the US Treasury Secretary at the time was
Hank Paulson, former CEO of Goldman Sachs? Or the fact that the
US Treasury, Federal Reserve, and Goldman Sachs are all run by the same people?
[T]he newly released Congressional documents show New York Fed officials deferring to bank executives at a time when the government was pumping hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars into the financial system to rescue bankers from their own mistakes. While Wall Street deal-making is famously hard-nosed with participants fighting for every penny, during the A.I.G. bailout regulators negotiated with the banks in an almost conciliatory fashion.
On Nov. 6, 2008, for instance, after a New York Fed official spoke with Lloyd C. Blankfein, Goldman’s chief executive, about the Fed’s A.I.G. plans, the official noted in an e-mail message to Mr. Blankfein that he appreciated the Wall Street titan’s patience. “Thanks for understanding,” the regulator said.
From the moment the government agreed to lend A.I.G. $85 billion on Sept. 16, 2008, the New York Fed, led at the time by Timothy F. Geithner, and its outside advisers all acknowledged that a rescue had to achieve two goals: stop the bleeding at A.I.G. and protect the taxpayer money the government poured into the insurer.
One of the regulators’ most controversial decisions was awarding the banks that were A.I.G.’s trading partners 100 cents on the dollar to unwind debt insurance they had bought from the firm. Critics have questioned why the government did not try to wring more concessions from the banks, which would have saved taxpayers billions of dollars.
Taxpayer money wasn't protected at all. Because if protecting taxpayers was one of their goals (which should have been their primary goal), they would have made the banks take concessions. But in no uncertain terms, everyone was focused on making the banks whole.
For its part, the Treasury appeared to be opposed to any options that did not involve making the banks whole on their A.I.G. contracts. At Treasury, a former Goldman executive, Dan H. Jester, was the agency’s point man on the A.I.G. bailout. Mr. Jester had worked at Goldman with Henry M. Paulson Jr., the Treasury secretary during the A.I.G. bailout. Mr. Paulson previously served as Goldman’s chief executive before joining the government.
Mr. Jester, according to several people with knowledge of his financial holdings, still owned Goldman stock while overseeing Treasury’s response to the A.I.G. crisis. According to the documents, Mr. Jester opposed bailout structures that required the banks to return cash to A.I.G. Nothing in the documents indicates that Mr. Jester advocated forcing Goldman and the other banks to accept a discount on the deals.
Although the value of Goldman’s shares could have been affected by the terms of the A.I.G. bailout, Mr. Jester was not required to publicly disclose his stock holdings because he was hired as an outside contractor, a job title at Treasury that allowed him to forgo disclosure rules applying to appointed officials. In late October 2008, he stopped overseeing A.I.G. after others were given that responsibility, according to Michele Davis, a spokeswoman for Mr. Jester.
Alternative bailouts schemes were proposed by Morgan Stanley, Black Rock, and Ernst & Young, requiring the banks to make concessions. But let's face it,
the US Treasury is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Goldman Sachs!
One plan envisioned the government guaranteeing A.I.G.’s obligations in various ways, in much the same way the F.D.I.C. backs personal savings accounts at banks facing runs by customers. On Oct. 15, Ms. Dahlgren wrote to Mr. Geithner that the Federal Reserve board in Washington had said the New York Fed should try to get Treasury to do a guarantee. “We think this is something we need to have in our back pockets,” she wrote.
Treasury had the authority to issue a guarantee but was unwilling to do so because that would use up bailout funds. Once the guarantee was off the table, Fed officials focused on possibly buying the distressed securities insured by A.I.G. From the start, the Fed and its advisers prepared for the banks to accept discounts. A BlackRock presentation outlined five reasons why the banks should agree to such concessions, all of which revolved around the many financial benefits they would receive. BlackRock and Morgan Stanley presented a number of options, including what BlackRock called a “deep concession” in which banks would return $6.4 billion A.I.G. paid them before the bailout.
The three banks with the most to lose under these options were Société Générale, Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs. Société Générale would have had to give up $322 million to $2.1 billion depending on which alternative was used; Deutsche Bank would have had to forgo $40 million to $1.1 billion, while Goldman would have had to give up $271 million to $892 million, according to the documents.
The Fed even hid the fact that they didn't attempt to get concessions from the banks.
Gift or not, the banks got 100 cents on the dollar. And on Nov. 11, 2008, a New York Fed staff member recommended that documents for explaining the bailout to the public not mention bank concessions. The Fed should not reveal that it didn’t secure concessions “unless absolutely necessary,” the staff member advised. In the end, the Fed successfully kept most of the details about its negotiations with banks confidential for more than a year, despite opposition from the media and Congress.
The whole bailout was a scam. AIG was simply used to funnel money to the banks, costing taxpayers billions.
All of this was quite different from the tack the government took in the Chrysler bailout. In that matter, the government told banks they could take losses on their loans or simply own a bankrupt company; the banks took the losses.
During the A.I.G. bailout, the Fed seemed more focused on extracting concessions from A.I.G. than from the banks. Mr. Baxter, in an interview, conceded that the way that the New York Fed handled the negotiations meant that any resulting deal “took most of the upside potential away from A.I.G.”
The legal waiver barring A.I.G. from suing the banks was not in the original document that regulators circulated on Nov. 6, 2008 to dissolve the insurer’s contracts with the banks. A day later a waiver was added but the Congressional documents show no e-mail traffic explaining why that occurred or who was responsible for inserting it. The New York Fed declined to comment.
The legal waiver undermined the financial interests of not just AIG, but all of us taxpayers too. Because if Goldman had lied about the mortgage securities AIG insured, we no longer have legal recourse.
Goldman to make record bonus payout!
Timothy Geithner, Hank Paulson, Lloyd Blankfein and the rest of
the Goldman/Treasury cabal should be investigated to the fullest. But I won't hold my breath waiting for that to happen.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_2000_Oct_18/ai_66192565/pg_2/
Goldman Sachs Announces New Managing Directors and New Members of the Partnership Pool
Daniel A. Abut Frank J. Kinney, III
Anand Aithal Shigeki Kiritani
Yusuf A. Aliredha John T. Koh
Francois Andriot Mary Lyn V. Kurish
John G. Andrews Gregory D. Lee
John A. Ashdown Todd W. Leland
William A. Badia Remco O. Lenterman
Adam P. Barrett Johan H. Leven
Christopher M. Barter Richard J. Levy
Frank A. Bednarz Tobin V. Levy
Janet L. Bell P. Jeremy Lewis
Anthony D. Bernbaum George C. Liberopoulos
Thomas P. Berquist Richard C. Lightburn
John D. Bertuzzi Susan S. Lin
Elizabeth E. Beshel Anthony W. Ling
Andrew M. Bevan Bonnie S. Litt
Abraham Bleiberg Joseph Longo
Alastair M. Borthwick Peter B. MacDonald
Graham Branton Mark G. Machin
Alan J. Brazil John V. Mallory
Peter M. Brooks Blake W. Mather
Julian J. Brown Karen A. Matte
Melissa R. Brown John J. McCabe
David D. Burrows Lynn M. McCormick
Mark J. Carlebach Tracy K. McHale Stuart
Mariafrancesca Carli James A. McNamara
Mark Carroll Robert A. McTamaney
Amy L. Chasen Sharon I. Meers
W. Reed Chisholm, II Christian A. Meissner
Jane P. Chwick Michael A. Mendelson
Geoffrey G. Clark Luciana D. Miranda
Catherine M. Claydon Douglas D. Moffitt
Michael D. Cochrane R. Scott Morris
Robert G. Collins Kevin D. Naughton
Marcus R. Colwell Leslie S. Nelson
Peter H. Comisar Geoffrey W. Nicholson
Llewellyn C. Connolly Theodore E. Niedermayer
Eric J. Coutts Markus J. Noe-Nordberg
Meyrick Cox Fergal J. O'Driscoll
Brahm S. Cramer L. Peter O'Hagan
Nicholas P. Crapp Taneki Ono
Michael L. Crowl Calum M. Osborne
Michael D. Daffey Nigel M. O'Sullivan
Paul B. Daitz Brett R. Overacker
Jean A. De Pourtales James R. Paradise
Luigi de Vecchi Michael L. Pasternak
James D. Dilworth Ketan J. Patel
Joseph P. DiSabato Arthur J. Peponis
Suzanne O. Donohoe David E. Perlin
James H. Donovan Michel G. Plantevin
Donald J. Duet Roderic L. Prat
Michael L. Dweck B. Andrew Rabin
Gregory H. Ekizian Philip A. Raper
Aubrey J. Ellis Peter Richards
Earl S. Enzer Michael J. Richman
Christopher H. Eoyang Andrew J. Rickards
Ian J. Evans Paul M. Roberts
Norman Feit Michael S. Rotter
Jacob Y. Friedman John P. Rustum
Robert K. Frumkes Neil I. Sarnak
Richard A. Genna Atsuko Sato
Kenneth K. Gershenfeld Masanori Sato
Rajiv A. Ghatalia Marc P. Savini
Robert R. Gheewalla Erich P. Schlaikjer
Gary T. Giglio Thomas M. Schwartz
Pedro Gonzalez Grau Lisa M. Shalett
Roger H. Gordon Ramakrishna Shanker
Gregory M. Gould David G. Shell
Michael J. Graziano Evan W. Siddall
Carmen A. Greco Ralph J. Silva
Sebastian Grigg David T. Simons
Peter Gross Christine A. Simpson
Douglas A. Guzman Sergio E. Sotolongo
David R. Hansen Vickrie C. South
Arne K. Hassel Timothy T. Storey
Douglas C. Heidt Nobumichi Sugiyama
William L. Hemphill Johannes R. Sulzberger
David P. Hennessey Richard J. Sussman
Peter C. Herbert Watanan Suthiwartnarueput
Kenneth W. Hitchner Caroline H. Taylor
Peter Hollmann David H. Tenney
Philip Holzer Timothy J. Throsby
Jay D. Horine Peter K. Tomozawa
Zu Liu Frederick Hu Daniel Truell
Elizabeth A. Husted Gareth N. Turner
Walter V. Hutcherson Eiji Ueda
John S. Iglehart Lucas van Praag
Margaret H. Isdale Frederick G. Van Zijl
Hideki Ishibashi Ashok Varadhan
Walter A. Jackson Casper W. Von Koskull
Ronald H. Jacobe, Jr. Robert T. Wagner
Andrew R. Jessop Jerry T. Wattenberg
Thomas Jevon Gregg S. Weinstein
David M. Jimenez-Blanco Scott R. Weinstein
Peter T. Johnston Martin M. Werner
Roy R. Joseph C. Howard Wietschner
Marc H. Jourdren Keith R. Wills
Atul Kapur Kurt D. Winkelmann
James C. Katzman Melinda B. Wolfe
Carsten Kengeter Wassim G. Younan
Gioia M. Kennett Jeffrey J. Zajkowski
The following have been invited to join the Partnership Pool as of
November 25, 2000.
Raanan A. Agus Thomas B. Lewis, Jr.
Philippe J. Altuzarra Gwen R. Libstag
Zar Amrolia Mitchell J. Lieberman
Stuart N. Bernstein Syaru Shirley Lin
Jean-Luc Biamonti Antigone Loudiadis
Randall A. Blumenthal John A. Mahoney
Antonio Borges Sean O. Mahoney
Charles W. A. Bott Charles G. R. Manby
Craig W. Broderick Barry A. Mannis
John J. Bu Arthur S. Margulis
Timothy B. Bunting Robert J. Markwick
Lawrence V. Calcano Kathy M. Matsui
Richard M. Campbell-Breeden Theresa E. McCabe
Carmine C. Capossela Mark E. McGoldrick
Chris Casciato Stephen J. McGuinness
Robert J. Christie John C. McIntire
Peter T. Cirenza Audrey A. McNiff
Laura C. Conigliaro Roberto Mendoza
Frank T. Connor Amos Meron
Karen R. Cook Edward S. Misrahi
Edith W. Cooper Jeffrey M. Moslow
Philip A. Cooper Ian Mukherjee
Eduardo A. Cruz Duncan L. Niederauer
John S. Daly Richard T. Ong
Simon Dingemans Mukesh K. Parekh
Suzanne O. Donohoe David B. Philip
James H. Donovan Stephen R. Pierce
Michael B. Dubno John J. Rafter
Jay S. Dweck Paul M. Roberts
Isabelle Ealet John F. W. Rogers
Herbert E. Ehlers Paul M. Russo
John E. Eisenberg Katsunori Sago
Edward K. Eisler Pablo J. Salame
Michael P. Esposito J. Michael Sanders
Charles P. Eve Gary B. Schermerhorn
Thomas M. Fitzgerald Jeffrey W. Schroeder
Shirley Fung Steven M. Scopellite
Emmanuel Gavaudan Robert J. Shea, Jr.
Robert R. Gheewalla Ravi M. Singh
H. John Gilbertson, Jr. Ravi Sinha
James S. Golob Edward M. Siskind
Frank J. Governali Michael M. Smith
David J. Greenwald Randolph C. Snook
Christopher Grigg Ronald K. Tanemura
Douglas C. Grip Mark J. Tracey
Charles T. Harris, III Harkanwar Uberoi
Nobumichi Hattori Hugo H. Van Vredenburch
Terry P. Hughes Corrado P. Varoli
William L. Jacob, III John J. Vaske
Dan H. Jester Hsueh-Ming Wang
David A. Kaplan David M. Weil
Robert C. King, Jr. Todd A. Williams
Ewan M. Kirk Michael S. Wishart
Mark J. Kogan Zi Wang Xu
Peter J. Layton W. Thomas York, Jr.
Kenneth H. M. Leet Paolo Zannoni
Hughes B. Lepic James P. Ziperski
COPYRIGHT 2000 Business Wire
In the video you are about to see, George Soros talks about "the creation of a New World Order", he discusses the need for a "managed decline" of the U.S. dollar and he talks at length of the global need for a true world currency. So just who is George Soros? Well, he is a billionaire "philanthropist" who came to be known as "the Man Who Broke the Bank of England" when he raked in a staggering one billion dollars during the 1992 "Black Wednesday" currency crisis. These days Soros is most famous for being perhaps the most "politically active" (at least openly) billionaire in the world. His Open Society Institute is in more than 60 countries and it spends approximately $600 million a year promoting the ideals that Soros wants promoted. Soros and his pet organizations have played a key role in quite a few "revolutions" around the globe over the last several decades, but these days the main goal of George Soros is to bring political change to the United States.