May 30, 2007
Cara's Daily Commentary, Wed., May 30, 2007, 9:20 AM
Market Chat
There comes a time for the People to speak up. Recently, I warned that the next appointee of President Bush to head the World Bank would be to the organization or person to whom he owed the most political capital. Today, the Goldman Sach's drumbeat in the White House goes on.
GS Vice-Chairman Robert Zoellick is the person the President says is "exceptionally qualified" for the job because of his "years of experience" in international economics, diplomacy and trade. Should anybody be surprised? After all, Goldman Sachs has taken control of the US Treasury, the Fed, the New York Stock Exchange and now the World Bank - all since March 7, 2006.
Is it any wonder that when the majority of independent analysts figured that the current Bull market had ended in a normal 4 year cycle in May 2006 that along came Goldman Sachs to deem that the equity market would expand and that, with the help of Friends & Family in Humungous Private Equity Corp, they were "going to get theirs"?
Is this concentration of the nation's financial control in the hands of a single private company what the US Founding Fathers had in mind? Is today's Congress even the least bit clued in to what is going on here?
Btw, these moves started in 2003 when former NYSE CEO Richard Grasso was given a back-room compensation deal that bumped the total of his "reasonable pay" to $139.5 million, causing then NY Attorney General Eliot Spitzer to file a lawsuit against Grasso on May 24, 2004, for a combined $187 million compensation package, including prior entitlements.
Then the Goldman Sachs president and chief operating officer at the time, John Thain, was parachuted into the NYSE to take the permanent CEO's job. John had also been an advisor to the Fed's International Capital Markets Advisory Committee.
Thain then helped to complete the reverse take-over of the NYSE by Goldman Sachs'-controlled Archipelago on March 7, 2006.
Henry Paulson, Goldman Sachs chairman and CEO was nominated to the position of Treasury Secretary by the President on May 30, 2006, confirmed by the Senate on June 30 and sworn in on July 10, 2006. Ten days later, after visiting Family & Friends on the trading floors in NY and Chicago, the depressed US equity market took off like a rocket, performing like never before in history.
Here is the chart as of the close last week. Look at the key date when Hank Paulson took over the US Treasury.
In November 2006, William Dudley, 10 years the chief US economist for Goldman Sachs was parachuted in to the Federal Reserve Bank to oversee all open market trading operations of the FOMC, a position that was confirmed by the Fed executive on Jan 30-31, 2007. In my article, "Non Trader is now America's CTO, Nov 29, 2006", I alerted readers that Mr Dudley was not a trader, and that he often joked about how bad a trader he is.
But I suppose he takes instructions well from Hank Paulson.
I think the Goldman Sachs control situation is dire. Today we learn it has been extended to now cover the president's job of the World Bank, with the intention to install GS Vice-Chairman Robert Zoellick in that position.
America now is under control of the "Gold"man. I don't think the People have a clue.
I warned of this in my article, "Should the name be Gambino Sachs? Tues., May 30, 2006".
I also warned readers in my Week #36 in Review (Sept 9, 2006) that the Paulson Plunge Protection Team was at work juicing the equity market. The mid-July 2006 rocket launch, the week that Paulson took the reins at Treasury, was clear to me, so by Sept 9, I had these words to say in my blog:
One of the readers sent a report by the "Counterparty Risk Management Policy Group" of Humungous Bank & Broker. This is the Plunge Protection Team (PPT) at work, which you may find of interest.
In it, you'll get to read about the why and how our markets are no longer free, but carefully controlled by Henry Paulson et al. You'll read about subjects like 'Private Counterparty Surveillance' and a `Moral Hazard' that I bet 99 pct of you have never heard of.
Oh yes, you'll read (i) about the massive credit bubble, not of our doing, (ii) reasons why hedge funds are not directly regulated, although common sense dictates they ought to be (iii) unconscionable conflicts existing at Humungous Bank & Broker that are not permitted in any other aspect of our society, but which HB&B says is not a problem, and (iv) the procedures by which these financial service companies organize and control us.
It may be their report, but it is incumbent upon the most serious and capable among us to analyze it and tell the others what they ought to know is going on in the boardrooms of the Money Center Banks and Washington. We all have a stake in this.
I think it is time for independent thinkers, bloggers and investment analysts to speak up about this Goldman Sachs issue - now, before it is too late.