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Goldman And Buffett Plan To Steal CIT's Business While Company Is Bankrupt
The latest plot by OCTOsquared (the Octopus and the Octogenarian, well, technically Buffett is still 79 years young, but give him a few hundred days until August 1, 2010) is to take advantage of CIT's bankruptcy by poaching thousands of small and medium business clients. The timing, of course, could not be more opportunistic. Bloomberg reports that "Goldman Sachs Group Inc., under fire in Washington for setting aside billions of dollars for bonuses a year after getting a taxpayer bailout, is preparing to team up with billionaire investor Warren Buffett to provide assistance to small businesses, said people familiar with the matter." This so-called "charitable effort", which is nothing but a vulture scheme to take advantage of yet more market dislocations and have the octopus grow a few more tentacles in its endless quest of financial monopolist supremacy, will of course be spun as indicative of the dynamic duo's endless humanism. That the squid will have the backing of the greatest US cheerleader in recent history (else those written index puts may rear their ugly head once again), biggest TARP beneficiary, and the largest Goldman shareholder, is also not all that surprising.
Some more observations on the OCTOplot from Bloomberg:
The charitable effort, which may be announced as soon as today, coincides with one of the Obama administration’s top economic priorities: spurring hiring at small companies. The initiative would aim to provide assistance -- ranging from counseling to obtaining funding -- to 10,000 U.S. businesses, according to the people, who declined to be identified before the program is announced. Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. is the largest shareholder in New York-based Goldman Sachs.
Lucas van Praag, a spokesman for Goldman Sachs, declined to comment. Buffett didn’t reply to an e-mail seeking comment sent to his assistant, Carrie Kizer.
And here is why you should expect another press conference by Obama any minute now to announce this massively charitable development by the firm that broke all statistical rules over the past 6 months.
Goldman Sachs, the most profitable securities firm in Wall Street history, is trying to dispel criticism from lawmakers and pundits who portray the company as the greedy face of a financial industry whose excessive risk-taking fueled the credit crisis. Unlike competitors that make home loans and provide small business credit lines, more than 90 percent of Goldman Sachs’s pretax earnings this year came from trading and principal investments. [in other words, as Dylan Ratigan, claims a government backstopped casino]
The company has notified President Barack Obama’s administration about the small-business initiative, according to one of the people familiar with the program.
Truly, a very generous effort by Goldman as it seeks to break the $1 million compensation per employee threshold:
“Goldman Sachs seems to salute no flag but their own corporate logo,” Andy Stern, president of the 2.1 million- member Service Employees International Union, said at a rally yesterday in front of Goldman’s Washington office. He accused the company’s executives of “gorging themselves” on bonuses made possible by tax money from working Americans.
Because Goldman Sachs repaid its TARP capital injection earlier this year, the government has no direct say over its pay. The Treasury has subjected seven companies, including Citigroup Inc. and AIG, to compensation restrictions.
Needless to say this is not the first time Goldman has attempted to prove to people that deep down it is merely an altruistic messenger of god.
In November 2007, a month before awarding employees bonuses that were the biggest ever in the securities industry, the company announced plans to raise as much as $1 billion for a philanthropic fund called Goldman Sachs Gives.
The program was unveiled six months after John Whitehead, who retired as co-chairman of the firm in 1984 and oversaw its foundation, criticized Goldman Sachs’s “shocking” pay and said he’d tried unsuccessfully a year earlier to persuade the firm to donate $1 billion to charity.
The fund was formed with a $50 million contribution from Goldman Sachs and $80 million from partners at the firm, each of whom has his or her own account and can guide how the money is spent.
In March 2008, the company said it planned to contribute $100 million over five years to provide business education to women in developing nations and elsewhere through an initiative called 10,000 Women. The program has been established in 18 countries and has more than 60 partners.
In the meantime, we are happy to see even more tax documents on the horizon which will disclose yet more quantized trade data for Goldman's prop desk, and also we can not wait to see the Goldman proxy due out in a few short weeks and make quite public the hundreds of millions in dollars to be paid to some of the least deserving humans in history.
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Yep. DOW 11,000 Friday.
least deserving humans in history...
I'm not sure I would call them human.
To me they're sort of a sub-species, on a dying branch of the evolutionary tree, proto-humans, austrogoldmansachipus buffettus
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5e/Australopithecus_afar...
http://i.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/01002/GE-2_1002313...
They're offering business "counseling"? That's their announcement?
How about picking up CIT's small biz loaning activity? Right now, small business people are desperately trying to keep their heads above water, they don't want to sit in seminars put on by Goldman Sachs.
"Please Wall Street banker, enlighten me on how I've been running my family business wrong for the last 20 years."
"Well, first off, you're not bankrolling enough highly-placed government and pseudogovernment officials..."
faustian bargain,
You've been on a roll the past few weeks. I can't keep up.
i have way too much free time, unfortunately. :(
What can Goldman Sachs possibly teach any small business (i.e., Not Too Big to Fail) about success?
"Just do what we do: borrow at 0%, have all your possible losses backstopped by the taxpayer, and take full advantage of your privileged access to information owed you because you have not only judiciously placed former partners in positions of authority within the government, but also because you have made yourselves more than visible through aggressive lobbying and campaign finanncing.
It's so easy when you know how. Oh, and it helps to have God on your side."
I think they captured the essence of Warren and Goldman over at the Big Picture on another recent deal Goldman and he cooked up:
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/11/treasury-dks-goldmanfanniebrk-tax-c...
Warren Buffett has been and is currently a plague on free markets. Why does he oppose elimination of the federal estate tax? Well, he sells business continuity insurance. He's also used the death tax to obtain family businesses on the cheap. Buffalo News, anyone? He's a charlatan, a snake oil salesman. Integrity? Not an ounce. I attended a conference where a former internal auditor at Coca-Cola's North American division gave compelling testimony that he had uncovered channel stuffing of syrup. When he encountered resistance from senior management, he then escalated it to the board of directors, which included good ole WB. He got a nothing burger. The only thing that saved him was his documents, an SEC investigation and Deval Patrick, current governor of Massachusetts who at the time was the GC at Coca-Cola. WB, here's to hoping it gets "put" to you.
The Oracle of Omaha has become the Asshole of Obama. Its obvious he is playing on the O-team and I lost all the respect for him when he invested first in GS, then in GE then cheerleadered the Buy America chant. The elite will never lose out under the O-team administration.
Out of Columbia University, same as Obama & the ACORN Founders. Jimmy, sorry, Warren has been on record for his socialist intents.
And we wonder how Obama got elected. Former GS employees all over the place. Just call him the Puppet Squid Master.
The sociopaths fiegn concern.
I really want to see who the recipients of the largesse are and how stacked it is with political connections.
This is not philanthropy.
That fucking old geezer still meddling!? Doesn't he have a Choo-choo train business that is in desperate need of some fantasy profits? Better get back to manipulating your bucket list!
Grandpa Buffett?
The man should win an Oscar!
Warren Buffett and Goldman Sachs go all the way back to the previous depression! I think they should grab all the Countrywide Ooops I mean CIT they can get their hands on. Bankruptcy has it's causes, just like elections have their consequences.
Warren is the king, Goldman is Count di Monet...they made a film about it:
http://tinyurl.com/647pxk
"a philanthropic fund called Goldman Sachs Gives"
more like GSGAF (GS gives a f@ck)
That might be a nice catchy theme on their Turkey Giveaway bags.
+1
I had a vomit reflex when I heard the story this AM.
any small biz (especially those who have any intellectual property) that is gullible enough to accept help from the goldsack boys under the guise of charity deserves what they are going to get -- raped & pillaged...with a possible apology afterwards:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aeV9jwqKKrEw
Yeah. It's like letting the mob in, can you say BUST OUT!?
I dunno, I think it's going to be like that television show The Sharks, or Shark Tank, whatever... And Lloyd is going to be the bald guy who always fights with the Tech Guy.
"You're dead to me if you walk away".
Great summary. Speaking of the squid, is it true that a single share of GS will get you into the AGM? Could be an interesting party in NYNY that day with a little organization . . .
PS More than a little ironic (here) that the only any real trouble for GS in the non-cyberworld is coming at the hands of a single workers' union.
This so-called "charitable effort", which is nothing but a vulture scheme to take advantage of yet more market dislocations and have the octopus grow a few more tentacles in its endless quest of financial monopolist supremacy, will of course be spun as indicative of the dynamic duo's endless humanism.
Nonsense. Goldman isn't interested in the kind of small business lending CIT specialized in, working capital loans to retailers and other such trivia. Why would a business that makes $100 million plus virtually every day like it's an annuity be interested in a low margin lending business?
This is a PR initiative from Goldman and they pulled Buffett into it in a pathetic effort to dampen the inevitable public cynicism about their motivations. The $500 million they're putting into it is less than 2% of what they'll pay out in bonuses for 2009. Goldman is finally figuring out that they have a big bullseye on their back. Blankfein said in a speech today that Goldman participated in some stuff they shouldn't have been doing and they felt bad about it. He's trying to avoid a regulatory backlash from Congress that could happen if public anger against Goldman and the other TBTF leeches on the taxpayer's backs becomes a threat to the reelection prospects of members of Congress in 2010.
Agreed. This is a ridiculous article making a silly allegation about an obvious PR move (that will happen to actually do good things for some small businesses). The ugly comments ("least deserving humans...") only help to undermine the legitimacy of this site.
(that will happen to actually do good things for some small businesses)
how so exactly?
Take a look at the press release - $200MM in scholarships for "business education" and $300MM in "lending and philanthropic support". Doesn't seem too bad to me.
http://www2.goldmansachs.com/our-firm/press/press-releases/current/10-k-...
Hey, even Al Capone had the sense to give away 10,000 turkeys at Thanksgiving. And three dozen roses to his bootlegging competitors just before he shot 'em.
Yeah, baby, philantrophy can be a great cover.
3 principles small businesses can learn from GS (the hard way):
1) ONLY do business with those you know you can trust.
2) when entering into written contracts, ALWAYS read the fine print.
3) NEVER go into debt or invest more than you can afford to lose (unless you're backstopped by the guvvies that is).
see, that was easy, and it only cost us (and our children and our children's children's children) $xxxB to learn. you boys already may be doing god's work after all.
ARJ,
Assuming you don't work for the Squid, put down the Lloyd's Kool-Aid. Just because they said they would do these things, doesn't mean it will actually happen. Just look at GS Gives, in which money was only "given" with strings attached. So, it's basically a tax-free PR cookie jar for each donor. You really aren't that naive, are you?
What were the strings attached with GS Gives? As for naivety, I think the unhinged paranoia displayed by some on this site is rather more naive.
The Anacle of Omaha and the Beast of Broad Street. Mmmm, tentacley.
The Golden Scrote wants to look after us all, surely.
and keep us safe from harm............... ?
oh the envy!
Is it just me or does ZH filter out any comments which are not in the aggressive, banker trashing spirit of the others?
This happens on a recurring basis and I am beginning to be disgusted by it, especially reading some of the things that are published instead.
For all Tyler and co's raving about true democracy and transparency, this practice makes me begin to think your true beliefs are antidemocratic and hypocritical.
OOps..... How did this 134367 comment sneak through the filter net ??
The author of comment #134367 here - for the record:
apologies to Tyler and CO since it appears I was wrong about censorship...
Its just it takes a loong time for the comment to appear...
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