This latest story reported in the raw story.
Warren Buffett balked at conflict of interestBREAKING 10:08 AM ET:Vanity Fair will report in the next issue of the magazine that US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson — a former head of the investment bank Goldman Sachs — tried to orchestrate secretive deals in the midst of the financial crisis but got blowback from prominent investor Warren Buffett. The following press release was obtained by Raw Story; the magazine appears today on newsstands in New York and Los Angeles.
NEW YORK, N.Y.—The government secretly tried to orchestrate a deal involving Goldman Sachs in the week following Lehman Brothers’ collapse and considered using the Federal Reserve to help support such a transaction, Andrew Ross Sorkin reports in the new issue of Vanity Fair.
It is amazing that there is so little backlash as these stories are made known and exposed. Authors like Ross Sorkin, Paul Muolo of Source Media have written about and exposed much of this dirt. This blog and others do the same, yet with all the readership and even the appearances of some prominent authors and politicians on major main stream media nothing is done. I can only surmise that corruption is allowed and/or authorized with total immunity for those with a "seat" at the very exclusive and large table. If you have a seat at the table and are a member of the exclulsive "too big to fail" cllub, it is permissable with no consequence what so ever to commit crimes. To make matter even worse, we, the people (sound familiar?) pay them to commit crimes and enrich themselves and their inner circle.
If we pay them for committing these crimes then does that not make us conspirators as well? It does! By allowing them to do what they want to do, seeing, hearing and reading about their criminal activities and doing nothing about it is wrong. It is up to us (we, the people) to speak up, speak out and insist to our leaders and law enforcement to take the actions entrusted to them. Criminals are criminals no matter their economic or political status.
So let's see who some of these criminals in this "secret" deal with Goldman Sachs and the US are.
In an excerpt from his forthcoming book, Too Big To Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System—and Themselves, Sorkin reports that the deal, which was nearly consummated, would have merged Goldman Sachs and Wachovia. Henry M. Paulson, the Treasury secretary and former C.E.O. of Goldman, was deeply involved in the process, contacting both Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman’s current C.E.O., and a Wachovia board member, and strongly urged both to consider it. Wachovia’s C.E.O., Robert Steel, was a former vice-chairman at Goldman Sachs and Paulson’s former number two at the Treasury Department.But wait, there are more in ths tangled web of criminality.
Rodgin Cohen, a Sullivan & Cromwell lawyer who was advising both Wachovia, on parallel talks with Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs, on its bank-holding-company application, was the first to suggest that the government attempt a shotgun wedding between Goldman and Wachovia, Sorkin reports. He offered up the idea in a phone call to Kevin Warsh, a governor at the Fed, saying that it wasn’t an officially sanctioned plan by his clients, just a friendly suggestion from an old-timer in the business. He said he knew it was a long shot—the “optics,” he acknowledged, would be problematic, given that Paulson and Wachovia C.E.O. Robert Steel were both former Goldman men—but it would solve everyone’s problems: Goldman would get the deposit base it needed, and Wachovia would have its death sentence stayed.Now here comes Timothy Geithner, then President of the N.Y. Federal Reserve Bank and TODAY is - US Secretary of the Treasury. Here is a passage from the story showing his involvement at that time.
Much to their dismay, Cohn and Steel spent 24 hours working on a deal that they thought was near closure—and had the support of the Fed—but which ultimately died after Paulson, Bernanke and Geithner decided against pursuing it, in part, because of the “optics” of Goldman’s ties to the government. “I’m sorry. I understand—I’m just as frustrated as you are. We just don’t have the money; we don’t have the authorization,” Warsh explained.
Meanwhile, the government demanded Morgan Stanley merge with J. P. Morgan, an idea that both John Mack, Morgan Stanley’s C.E.O., and Jamie Dimon, J. P. Morgan’s C.E.O., did not want to pursue, but both held brief talks at the government’s urging.(emphasis added)
Paulson, Bernanke, and Geithner (the three conspirateers - emphasis and comment within these brackets added) told Mack that he should be willing to sell his firm to J. P. Morgan for $1 a share. Mack, in an impassioned phone call with the three government leaders, rejected their demand: “There are 35,000 jobs that have been lost in this city between A.I.G., Lehman, Bear Stearns, and just layoffs. And you’re telling me that the right thing to do is to take 45,000 to 50,000 people, and put them in play, and have 20,000 jobs disappear? I don’t see how that’s good public policy.”
Let's list the conspirators we have learned about in this article.
- Henry Paulson, the US Treasury Secretary and former CEO Goldman Sachs (was deeply involved in the process)
- Lloyd Blankfein, CEO Goldman Sachs and a Board member of Wachovia
- Robert Steel, CEO Wachovia and former vice-chairman of Goldman Sachs. Also was former Deputy Treasury Secretary under Paulson
- Timothy Geithner, then President of the NY Federal Reserve Bank and NOW US Secretary of the Treasury (hmmm)
- Rodgin Cohen, a Sullivan & Cromwell lawyer who was advising Wachovia on parallel talks with Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs
- Gary Cohn, Goldman Sachs Co President
WAKE UP AMERICA! You are being manipulated and robbed. Can you not see how the average person is hurting while these others are profiting at your expense?
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