Deregulation by Democrats Responsible for Obscene Wall Street Profits

Democrats are very quick to accuse Republicans of the sort of deregulation that creates crises on Wall Street. They're correct. However, Democrats themselves have been guilty of the same immoral sorts of deregulation. It was the Bill Clinton administration that made it possible for some Wall Street tycoons to make it rich in the financial markets at the same time that you and I are losing our shirts.

How can Goldman Sachs be increasing profits by over half when yours and my 401k plans are floundering? Because of deregulation by Democrats.


Former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is also a former CEO

My greatest worry during the current barrage of revelations regarding Goldman Sachs' chicanery is that we'll take our eye off the juiciest target--the Federal Reserve. But hopefully that won't be too difficult now Goldman and the Fed are two whores in the same bed.

of Goldman Sachs. In 2008, when Lehman brothers--a strong rival to Goldman Sachs--asked to become a "bank holding company", Paulson denied the request. Lehman went the way of the dinosaur. As TruthDig reports:

...soon afterward, Goldman was granted just such a deal, worth a quick $10 billion. Much is now made of Goldman paying back part of its bailout money, but forgotten is the $12.9 billion that Goldman got as its cut of the $180 billion AIG payoff. That is money that will not be paid back.

In other words, that is money that Goldman can now declare as profit. Nifty!!

Henry Paulson is a criminal. But he didn't get that way all by himself. He got that way with several other criminals, one of whom, Robert Rubin, is also a former U.S. Treasury Secretary, and is also a former CEO of...you guessed it.

Goldman was not just another bank. Before Paulson ran the Treasury Department, another former Goldman head, Robert Rubin, pushed through the repeal of the Glass-Steagall controls on banking activity.

Glass-Steagall made it so that, among other things, Goldman Sachs could not become a bank holding company. Treasury Secretary and former Goldman CEO Robert Rubin carefully pushed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act through Congress in 1999--which repealed Glass-Steagall--with the help of a lot of elite Republicans and Democrats.

In questioning the propriety of the November 2008 bailout, which wouldn't have been nearly so simple without Rubin's having paved the way, TruthDig wonders:

Why didn’t the federal government just lend the money to the states? Why was all the money thrown at Wall Street instead of needy homeowners or struggling school systems? Because the federal government works for Goldman and not for us. Indeed, when it comes to the banking bailout, Goldman Sachs is the government.

It gets worse. On his show yesterday, Glenn Beck gives details as to just how adulterous is the affair between Goldman Sachs and government:

Then the former Goldman Sachs employee, now treasury secretary Paulson says we've got to appoint somebody to really oversee and design this TARP thing; who could I get, who could I get, who could I you know what? I'm going to hire somebody from Goldman Sachs. He will design TARP. At the same time Goldman Sachs calls their former employee who is now designing TARP and their former employee who's now the treasury secretary and says, you know what, we should be a bank holding company. A bank holding company? What? Are you kidding me? In the coming months that will take GE almost two days to have that happen. What, are you crazy? Wal Mart's been trying for years! "Okay, we'll do it." So the two former employees from Goldman Sachs now allow Goldman Sachs to be a bank holding company. Well, why would they want to be a bank holding company? Well, now they can get even more funds from the government. They cannot only get the TARP funds but they can also get FDIC funds. Oh, and there's also this other little pesky thing. The SEC, the SEC doesn't oversee bank holding companies. The Federal Reserve oversees a bank holding company as long as it's the Federal Reserve where what town is Goldman Sachs? Oh, New York? Yeah. So you'll be overseen by the Federal Reserve chairman of New York who, oh, my gosh, what a coincidence! He's on your board of directors!

I'm not clear as to whether Beck is referring to Timothy Geithner in his monologue,

Geithner may not have been a Goldman employee, but he was the head of the New York Federal Reserve branch, and he was deeply involved with Henry Paulson in killing Bear Stearns and throwing its cement-booted corpse into the East River.

but Geithner was the head of the New York Federal Reserve branch, and he was deeply involved with Henry Paulson in killing Bear Stearns and throwing its cement-booted corpse into the East River.

My greatest worry during the current barrage of revelations of Goldman Sachs' chicanery is that we'll take our eye off the juiciest target--the Federal Reserve. But hopefully that won't be too difficult now Goldman and the Fed are two whores in the same bed.

As I have said before, the problem is not Republican vs. Democrat. It doesn't matter which party someone comes from. It matters if they have become entrenched in the gross immorality of the American elite.

Elite Republicans will screw you every chance they get. So will

Goldman Sachs is only the latest and most virulent evidence of what we get when we paint ourselves into the "lesser of two evils" box.

elite Democrats. Which is why it was a catastrophe to elect Barack Obama president. Which is also why it would have been equally catastrophic to have elected John McCain president.

Goldman Sachs is only the latest and most virulent evidence of what we get when we paint ourselves into the "lesser of two evils" box.