Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Goldman Hires Top Republican Fed Transparency Foe, May 29 2011

Tyler DurdenZero Hedge
The name Judd Gregg is not new to Zero Hedge readers. Back in the 2009-2010 battle for Fed transparency, which continues to be only fractionally on the way to being won, Gregg, who then served as the top Republican on the Budget Committee and a member of the Banking Committee, said that “opponents of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s second term are guilty of “pandering populism,”.” Odd that these populism panderers, of which Zero Hedge was a proud member, ultimately succeeded in not only getting a one time Fed audit, but also won the legal case initiated by Mark Pittman to expose the Fed’s dirty laundry, without which we would not know that not only did the Fed bail out primarily foreign investment banks during the financial crisis, but also that the biggest user of the Fed’s somewhat secret Short Term Open Market Operations facility, also known as a 0.01% subsidy, was none other than Goldman Sachs, contrary to the firm’s sworn statements that it did not really need bailing out. Gregg continued: “There’s a lot of populism going on in this country right now, and I’m tired of it.” Gregg warned that the growing tide of populism would threaten some of the most central institutions to the economy’s recovery. “What it’s going to do is burn down some of the institutions which are critical to us as a nation and as an economy to recover and create jobs,” he warned.” It was therefore only a matter of time that Gregg, following the end of his political career, has decided to step down, and work for one of these “central institutions to the economy’s recovery” – Goldman Sachs. As such we present the list of companies that courtesy of their “top contributor” status with the senator over the years, are about to get preferential treatment from Goldman’s sell side analysts, and see a prompt upgrade to Buy and/or Conviction Buy list in the near term. After all there is no such thing as squid-pro-zero in a world controlled by Wall Street’s institutions “central to the economy’s recovery.”

From Open Secrets:

More Political Capture: Goldman Hires Top Republican Fed Transparency Foe; Spends More Time With SEC Than Any Other Bank  Gregg%20Donors


And speaking of Squid Pro Quo, readers may be surprised (or not at all) to discover that of all bankers, the SEC’s Mary Schapiro, better know for letting the whole Madoff fiasco slip through her fingers, and letting Goldman get away with nothing more than a wristslap for the Abacus scandal, spent more time with Lloyfd Blankfein than any other executive from Wall Street. One wonders just what they were talking about for so long and on so many occasions.

Bloomberg reports:
After eight days on the job, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary Schapiro sat across from Lloyd Blankfein, chairman and chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., for her first meeting with one of the Wall Street executives she would regulate.
Following that Feb. 5, 2009, meeting, Goldman officials were frequent guests during her first two years, logging 10 meetings with the chairman — more than any other bank — according to her personal calendar for 2009 and 2010.
So for all those hoping for change to Wall Street’s criminal practices, the focus should first be on changing those in both the legislative and regulatory bodies who not only allow, but actively encourage this kind of behavior. But this naturally harkens to the whole topic of just how real the US democratic regime truly is.

And for an indepth observation on this so critical topic, we refer readers to Paul Craig Roberts recent interview with Max Keiser in which he so correclty pointed out: “There is no democracy, there are oligarchies, some of these smaller European countries are not even run by their own governments, they are run by Wall Street… There is probably more democracy in China than there is in the west. Revolution is the only answer… We are confronted with a curious situation. Throughout the west we think we have democracy, we hold ourselves up high, we demonize China, we talk about the mafia state of Russia, we talk about the Arabs and so on, but where is the democracy here?” He is spot on. Nothing short of a revolution has any chance of changing an embedded regime whose status quo demands, in plain view of the “law”,  the routine rape of the middle class to the benefit of the uber-wealthy.

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