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Matt Taibbi Retorts To Goldman's Retort
Round three of the Taibbi - Van Pragg welterweight death-match will be brought to you compliments of the MGM Mirage (in exchange for 3 bond coupon waivers).
In the meantime, here is Matt's Round 2.
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Good article and retort from Matt.... Since Goldmans CDS's with AIG have been made good, I suppose the US Gov will let AIG crash and burn. LOL
Taibbi is a clown who cherry-picks his info. He makes a big deal about the fact that GS paid only $14mm in taxes in '08 yet does not mention how they paid $5bn in '06 & $6bn in '07? Was that enough?!
Also, isn't this the same guy who thought he was so funny when he wrote a coulmn entitled "The 52 funniest things about the upcoming death of the pope"? Wow, that's so cool & hip...
I don't see where you have disputed any of the claims made in his article.....
PS. If it wasn't for the Goldman CDS exposure to AIG, major portions of AIG would be in the same trash heap as Lehman Brothers. Never hurts to have the GS alumni running the FED and Treasury.
Wow, did GS give you permission to read ZH while on their time?
Not only GS execs are recycled all over the world. The UBS Board also has some former JPM,Citi,Morgan Stanley,Barclays people.
http://zeropointfield.wordpress.com/2009/06/30/citizens-of-the-corporate-state/
and UBS is tightly linked into the fabric of economical and political Switzerland. See the second half of:
http://zeropointfield.wordpress.com/2009/06/06/swiss-federations-investment-in-ubs
Deutsche Bank's Joe Ackermann is a former Credit Suisse exec, linked to Rainer E. Gut, as is Walter Kielholz, now at Swiss Re.
It always goes back to the same group of people it seems. They get recycled all the time.
The US threw down all the chips on the financial (knowledge) economy (which perhaps is the legacy tail to Obama's "smart" approach). The strategy gutted the real economy and was the most massive leveraged bet of all on the financial complex scaling the great wall. RoW nodded their heads to the free trade dogma and went about their business. Backing GS wasn't a choice, it was a necessity dictated by anachronistic thinking, or confusion, about the US's underlying compeitive advanatge. GS is both player and pawn.
Bloomberg carried an article few weeks ago discussing Asian banks leading the league tables on bond issuance, ahead of US banks. India has rejected tearing down the walls. After the curenct debacle, don't expect much relaxation. Not a shock that all the banks are ramping up the FICC/commodities with cap-n-trade being the next great profit center.
Matts article perfectly illuminates what is an unbelievable problem for us here in America--trying to dispell 'conventional wisdom". I think it was sociologist Joel Best who said that getting rid of a bad statistic was, "harder to kill than a vampire." And this vampire notion completely applies to the myths out there about the federal reserve and their agents of which goldman sachs is their first born.
Conventional wisdom and group think give a beginning explanation as to why so few people know that the Federal Reserve is a private corporation. Yes, the Federal Reserve Act gave this privately held corporation with 300 shareholders the right to print our country’s money, and to charge for doing so, and to rebate the United States Treasury for all profits minus their operating expenses.
Bloomberg reported on June 5, 2009 in the article “ Fed Intends to Hire Lobbyist in Campaign to Buttress It’s Image” , that the Federal Reserve was hiring one of Enron’s previous lobbyists. On May 6, 2009, US representative Alan Grayson questioned the Inspector General of the Federal Reserve, Elizabeth Coleman, if she had any idea where 9 TRILLION dollars of off-balance sheet transactions for the Federal Reserve were located—she had no idea. Structured investment vehicles (SIV) were the method that Enron used to manage the off balance sheet transactions that caused so much hurt to so many people, and it is also, SIV’s that the Fed is using for this 9 trillion dollars. Since both the Federal Reserve and Enron use SIV’s, perhaps an x-Enron lobbyist will help the private Federal Reserve Corporation navigate the bad press that seems likely to follow, when the public understands these details.
Problem is, with the cunning audacity that is used to overlook all accusations, and a whole system that is designed to protect these overlords, it doesn't matter what the public understands until/unless big daddy's power is revoked by congress.
"it doesn't matter what the public understands until/unless big daddy's power is revoked by congress."
I agree and it will never change. Even RP audit bill on the Fed, if it is passed by the Senate it will be revoked by your President.
As regards GS and that situation:-
"Mancur Olson, the American economist, in his books (The Logic of Collective Action and The Rise and Decline of Nations), speculated that small distributional coalitions tend to form over time in developed nations and influence policies in their favor through intensive, well funded lobbying. The policies result in benefits for the coalitions and its members but large costs borne by the rest of population. Over time, the incentive structure means that more distributional coalitions accumulate burdening and ultimately paralysing the economic system causing inevitable and irretrievable economic decline."
http://www.wilmott.com/blogs/satyajitdas/index.cfm/Bank-Management
Thank you for the article! The power of the "finance-government complex" doesn't appear to have an achilles heel, but i see no choice but to continue to look for it.
Whacked, good to see you here, ZH is a powerful site! I had 'nuff about reading about chickens etc over at the other blog...Good Wilmott link, Satyajitdas is fantastic. thanks
I came across this interesting site..check it out Econ & Finance Articles Updated Daily
Anon, that is a useful site, thanks for the link.
Reserve and Enron use SIV’s, perhaps an x-Enron lobbyist will help the private Federal Reserve Corporation navigate the bad press that seems likely to follow, when the public understands these details. Problem is, with th
Obama,s policies may not be working as well as many had hoped:
The market keeps rebounding. It needs to be much, much lower. Americans are being scammed and nothing being done about it.
good finance articles http://www.bit.ly/12NCJR
We need to stop the corruption by Goldman, bank of Amerika, and Jp Morgan. Stop the Geithner and bernanke. .
Would anyone have a theory how FRC's SIVs work? There is much talk about them but no trace... The thing with SIVs is that they should leave at least some equity or guarantee residual somewhere on the books and I have seen none. When commenting on FRC's balance sheet no one to my knowledge ever said or suggested that X dollars of SIVs equity are burried within line item Y. Or anything of similar sort. Any thoughts?