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Forum Post: Class War by Goldman Sachs ~ Pervasive Skullduggery Beyond Belief

Posted 10 years ago on July 16, 2013, 5:52 a.m. EST by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR
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Global Power Project Part V: Banking on Influence With Goldman Sachs

Monday, 15 July 2013 09:18 By Andrew Gavin Marshall, Occupy.com |

Anyone who has paid even minimal attention to the global economic and financial crises gripping the world since 2007 has heard the name Goldman Sachs.

One of the largest banks in the United States, Goldman Sachs was central to the process of creating the housing bubble that popped in 2007-8, which led to the largest economic crisis since the Great Depression. As Matt Taibbi famously documented in Rolling Stone, Goldman has been involved in “every major market manipulation since the Great Depression,” profiting along the way as “a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.”

Let's go back to a little history.

In 2006 and 2007, as Goldman was selling high risk securities on home mortgages worth $40 billion, it was simultaneously betting against the housing market, ensuring that as the housing market crashed, the bank would make a significant profit. Thus, “the nation’s premier investment bank pass[ed] most of its potential losses to others before a flood of mortgage defaults staggered the U.S. and global economies.”

In late 2007, as the mortgage crisis was accelerating, executives at Goldman Sachs sent each other emails explaining that they would make “some serious money” betting against the housing market. Like a self-fulfilling prophecy, the bank helped the market crash harder and faster.

A U.S. Senate investigation into Goldman Sachs concluded that the bank “profited from the financial crisis [which it helped cause] by betting billions against the subprime mortgage market, then deceived investors and Congress about the firm's conduct,” and referred the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the U.S. Justice Department to investigate the bank for criminal or civil action.

As Goldman’s CEO Lloyd Blankfein himself stated: “We focused a lot of ourselves on trying to benefit from the crisis that happened... we were going to use that opportunity to make ourselves a better firm.”

In 2012, however, President Obama’s Justice Department announced that it would not pursue criminal charges against the bank. This, after the bank received over $12 billion in bailouts from the U.S. government to save the bank from the crisis that it created and profited from.

This, after Goldman Sachs helped create the Greek debt crisis for which entire populations of European countries are being punished into poverty while allowing the bank (among other banks) to continue to profit from the deepening depression and crisis in Europe.

This, after Goldman Sachs (along with other investment banks) helped create a global food crisis by speculating on food prices, sending the prices sky-high, then making immense profits while tens of millions of people around the world were pushed into hunger and starvation.

Obama’s decision not to prosecute the bank, of course, had nothing to do with the fact that Goldman Sachs was one of the top contributors to the Obama campaign in 2008 and again to his re-election campaign in 2012.

CEO Blankfein turned more heads when he told CBS News in November of 2012: “You’re going to have to undoubtedly do something to lower people’s expectations – the entitlements and what people think that they’re going to get, because it’s not going to – they’re not going to get it.” Suggesting that benefits like social security, Medicare and Medicaid were providing too much “support” to everyday people, Blankfein explained that “entitlements have to be slowed down and contained... because we can’t afford them.”

Apparently, the fact that Goldman Sachs received more than $10 billion in government welfare in exchange for its role helping to create a national and global financial crisis did not strike Blankfein as hypocrisy. The lesson he imparted: there is plenty of money to support the bank but not old-age pensioners. Because as Blankfein lectured the public about its need to "lower expectations" and lose its social benefits, bonuses for Wall Street executives were going up, with Goldman Sachs's bonuses and salaries for 2012 topping $13 billion.

Goldman's Reach into Other Institutions

For the Global Power Project, we examined a total of 83 individuals at Goldman Sachs, including executives, the board of directors, and several advisory boards. The most highly represented institution was Harvard University, where 12 (or 14%) of the 83 individuals hold leadership positions.

Following Harvard was the Council on Foreign Relations, where 10 Goldman Sachs representatives are members. The University of Pennsylvania and the World Economic Forum each have five individuals sharing leadership positions with the bank; four individuals are affiliated with the Bilderberg Meetings, four with Columbia University; and three with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the Brookings Institution, Rockefeller University, the Nature Conservancy, the Securities Industry Association, and the World Bank.

And the list goes on from there, as Goldman Sachs shares two individual leadership positions or affiliations with Tsinghua University, Cornell University, the Partnership for New York City, Wal-Mart, the Aspen Institute, New York University, Fannie Mae, Yale University, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Credit Suisse, Oxford, Barnard College, Prudential, the Bank of England, EastWest Institute, the London School of Economics, the Trilateral Commission, DiamlerChrysler, the OECD, the Central Park Conservancy, the Museum of Modern Art, Caterpillar, the International Rescue Committee and the Asia Society. The bank also includes two former European Commissioners.

Goldman Sachs shares one leadership position – past or presently – with the following institutions: the Financial Services Forum, Catalyst, the Monetary Authority of Singapore, Stanford, Investor AB, Stockholm School of Economics, the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, George W. Bush’s National Economic Council, ExxonMobil, Novartis, Honeywell International, Target, UnitedHealth Group, Perseus, EADS, PepsiCo, Royal Philips Electronics, Zurich Financial, PricewaterhouseCoopers, BP, Allianz, European Round Table of Industrialists, Royal Bank of Scotland, HSBC, Siemens, the Bank of Spain, IMF, the Group of Thirty, the Population Council, the European Central Bank, Princeton, Soros Fund Management, New York Stock Exchange, the Ford Foundation, Google, BHP Billiton, and the People’s Bank of China, among many others.

Meeting the Elites

There are several individuals holding leadership positions with Goldman Sachs who represent what we refer to as the global ruling class – or global plutocracy – by virtue of their multiple positions on numerous boards and advisory groups, think tanks, educational institutions, and other important institutions of influence, giving them unparalleled access to policy-makers around the world.

Let’s start with Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein, who has been chairman and CEO of the bank since 2006, and who is also a member of the Dean’s Advisory Board of Harvard Law School, a member of the Dean’s Council of Harvard University and is a member of the Advisory Board of Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management. Blankfein is also a member of the Board of Overseers of Weill Medical College at Cornell University, the board of directors of the Partnership for New York City, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the International Advisory Committee of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. He is additionally a member of the board of Catalyst, Chairman of the Financial Services Forum and is a member of the International Advisory Panel of the Monetary Authority of Singapore.

Stephen Friedman is on the board of directors of Goldman Sachs and has been Chairman of Stone Point Capital since 2005. He was previously Chairman of President George W. Bush’s Intelligence Advisory Board and Intelligence Oversight Board from 2006 to 2008, and was Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York between 2008 and 2009. Friedman was also the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy and Director of the National Economic Council in George W. Bush’s White House from 2002 to 2004, and was previously the Chairman of Goldman Sachs. He is a Trustee of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, a Trustee of Columbia University, a Trustee of the Aspen Institute, a former director of Wal-Mart and Fannie Mae, and is a member of the board of advisers of the Center for New American Security and the board of directors of the Council on Foreign Relations.

(Continued: http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/17563-global-power-project-part-v-banking-on-influence-with-goldman-sachs)

This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source. Andrew Gavin Marshall

Andrew Gavin Marshall is an independent researcher and writer based in Montreal, Canada, writing on a number of social, political, economic, and historical issues. He is also Project Manager of The People's Book Project. He also hosts a weekly podcast show, Empire, Power and People on BoilingFrogsPost.com.

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[-] -1 points by OccupyNews (1220) 10 years ago

When you are trapped in a mine, one doesn't necessarily spend all of their time and energy screaming at those above ground to save them. Some of their time is spent either conserving energy or digging their own way out.

I give examples of digging ones way out on my www.debtsuspensionrights.blogspot.com blog. Interestingly enough, after what I think have been some amazingly clear articles on how judges and the government are manipulating reverse mortgages, perhaps even unintentionally, the blog has no steam, no support, no nothing but a couple thousand views, certainly NOT EVEN ONE independent like.

Just sayin, you can whine about Goldman Sachs while I'll whine about how few people out there will support good ideas.

[-] 2 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 10 years ago

Right, so we should have handed the Wall Street Banksters shovels instead of bail outs!!

Oh wait, I forgot about the giant flaming double standard: Profits are Privatized, Losses are Socialized!

Blow your Koch Bros Angel Dust elsewhere.

[-] 0 points by OccupyNews (1220) 10 years ago

Is that really what you got out of my last comment? My last comment had to do with, I am proposing solutions to problems that sidestep wall street while healing main street.

But it appears you would rather IGNORE those good ideas and supporting those good ideas and instead focus on revenge.

[-] 1 points by WSmith (2698) from Cornelius, OR 10 years ago

Trickle down was NEVER a "good idea" for the 99%!

Fraud, is your proposal.

People, Unite and Win!

[-] 0 points by OccupyNews (1220) 10 years ago

you're just replying to your own script.