In the last election, members of Goldman Sachs supported Obama's campaign with $1,013,091. In the 2012 election, Goldman Sachs employees have so far supported Romney's campaign to the tune of $350,000. Then there are the investments managed by Goldman Sachs which provide wealth for Romney.
Romney's business relationships with Goldman Sachs, his obtaining campaign money from Goldman Sachs and his wealth accumulation via Goldman Sachs make a triumvirate of relationhips chalk full of blatant conflicts of interest if Romney were elected president of the U.S.
The questions arise: knowing what we do about the influences of Goldman Sachs on public policy, would Romney make a good President? Does Romney have any idea what it is like to live without millions of dollars at his disposal?
Goldman Sachs a key player in managing Romney's wealthRead the article here
Romney's tax returns show portions of his family fortune in an elite division of Goldman open only to clients with more than $10 million to invest and another in bank-run hedge funds.
By Nathaniel Popper - Los Angeles Times
Much of Mitt Romney's millions has come from his relationship with the biggest name on Wall Street: Goldman Sachs.
In the personal tax returns released by Romney's presidential campaign Monday, Goldman is revealed as one of the central players involved in managing his family's massive wealth.
A significant proportion of the Romney family fortune is parked with an elite division of Goldman that is open only to clients with more than $10 million to invest. Another chunk of the fortune is invested in Goldman-run hedge funds, which like all hedge funds are open only to millionaires.
One of the most profitable single investments visible in Romney's recent tax returns came from the sale of shares in Goldman itself. He was among a select group of investors allowed to buy Goldman shares on the day the bank went public in 1999. By the time 7,000 of the shares were sold by Romney's estate in 2010, they netted a $759,000 profit.
"You have to be a favored person to get that kind of thing," said Charles Geisst, a former banker and professor of finance at Manhattan College.
Goldman has a long history of quietly catering to America's elite. Since the financial crisis, though, the firm has come under public scrutiny for its massive profits and close ties to the country's political leadership.
Romney's fortune is now handled through a blind trust managed by a Boston attorney, who is responsible for choosing the specific investments. But Romney's ties to Goldman began before these trusts were set up and underscore his membership in the country's most exclusive financial circles, a categorization he has been eager to distance himself from.
Goldman and the Romney campaign would not comment on the relationship.
The link between Goldman and Romney is likely to come under continuing scrutiny as the presidential campaign moves forward because of big donations that Goldman employees have made to Romney.
While Goldman employees were among the most generous donors to Barack Obama in 2008, during this election cycle they have swung to Romney, serving as his single biggest source of donations, according to data analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics.
Romney's stated desire to repeal the 2010 financial reform legislation has been popular with executives at many financial firms, where the reform legislation is viewed as a threat to future profits.
Financial world insiders say that Romney would have had frequent contact with Goldman when he was president of the private equity firm Bain Capital, which bought companies and then took them public. Goldman helped bring some of Bain's companies public when Romney was at the firm and earned fees for doing so.
Romney was given access to the Goldman public offering during his final year at Bain, 1999. On the day of the offering, Goldman broke with precedent by offering almost all of the newly available shares to its own customers, according to reports at the time.
Goldman has not done this work free of charge. The Romney family trust paid Goldman $168,000 in management fees in 2010. The fees paid by Romney's own trust, and that of his wife, are not detailed.
Many of the investments that Goldman has made on behalf of Romney and his wife were in foreign companies, including the National Bank of Greece, Nokia and the French luxury retailer LVMH.
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