De Blasio Taps a Goldman Executive as Deputy Mayor of Housing

[choie]

Source: NY Times

Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio, who has laid out a plan to raise taxes on the wealthiest New Yorkers, tapped a company where many of them work to find his newest top-level appointee.

On Monday, Mr. de Blasio announced that Alicia Glen, an executive of the Goldman Sachs investment banking firm and a former city official, will be the deputy mayor for housing and economic development. Goldman is known for having some of the highest-paid executives in corporate America and for paying its bankers and traders more than they would earn at other Wall Street firms.

Mr. de Blasio and Ms. Glen said at a news conference in a Brooklyn factory that, as deputy mayor, she would focus on building more affordable housing and helping connect low-income residents to jobs that pay enough to support their families. Mr. de Blasio said his administration would demand “living-wage jobs” from companies that receive tax breaks and other subsidies from the city — a requirement that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg staunchly opposed. Referring to the central theme of Mr. de Blasio’s campaign, Ms. Glen said, “The tale of two cities is not O.K.” Ms. Glen said she did not think her co-workers at Goldman would object to paying higher taxes so that Mr. de Blasio could fulfill his promise of providing universal prekindergarten to the city’s children.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/24/nyregion/de-blasio-taps-a-goldman-executive-as-deputy-mayor-of-housing.html?ref=nyregion

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I don't fucking believe this...

[grasswire]

1. sounds like a horrible way to start his administration

sigh

[PragmaticLiberal]

4. Why do you say that?

Do you know something in particular about Ms. Glen's background or is just the Goldman Sachs thing?

[grasswire]

5. because of the signal it sends

"I'm your new progressive mayor. My first appointee will be from Goldman Sachs."

Perception is reality.

[JackRiddler]

7. "Just the Goldman Sachs thing"

Yeah, what's the big deal? It's a humanitarian outfit, right?

[PragmaticLiberal]

17. Don't get me wrong Jack: Maybe Ms. Glen's a horrible woman and is only concerned about the 1%.

I'm perfectly willing to concede that possibility.

But since I know next to nothing about her motives, I think I'd be foolish to judge her solely based on her having Wall St ties.


And I'm not going to. At least not yet.




(But I do understand where you're coming from).

[choie]

8. Why would he choose somebody from Goldman Sachs

to tackle the issue of housing in New York City? and affordable housing at that? You mean, Bill, that there is nobody with experience in affordable housing to choose from? Come on....

[blkmusclmachine]

10. DeBlasio, apparently another rightie shill in progressive/Democratic clothing. Knew it. That's all

the DEMS are, anymore. Wolves in sheep's clothing.

[TomClash]

15. Which other competent woman wanted the job? Nt

[JackRiddler]

20. Of course.

In New York City there are no other women expert and experienced in housing and development issues and management who wanted the job. (Can you name one? That must mean there are none!) She's the only one who could do it and wanted it and I'm sure she's taking a hell of a cut in salary. Or wait, was it mainly salary that she was earning as an executive at the world's premiere criminal organization? Down here, I have trouble keeping all the different forms of plundered receivables straight. In any case, I'm sure her assets will do just fine during her tenure.

TALE OF TWO CITIES.

[TomClash]

22. Oh sure

A managing director for a few years doing social investing and public and private partnership work runs the show at Goldman. This has almost zero importance there. It is way down on the totem pole.

One of her first statements is that a latte a day paid by people making over $750k is nothing compared to the value of funding pre-K education. But, hey, why consider facts?

The fact remains no one stepped up with someone who knows more about housing who actually wants the job. You couldn't name one. What a surprise.

Can we give the new Mayor a chance before we DU him, trashing him for appointments we know little about? The guy hasn't even been sworn in yet.

[JackRiddler]

24. "Runs the show at Goldman"

"Social investing" and "public and private partnership work" are weasely euphemisms. An outfit like Goldman Sachs doesn't do anything of the sort. It does some public relations to put the perfume on the dogshit, and engages in social engineering to shape society in its interests.

Isn't compartmentalization grand? Anyone who chooses to work at the firm responsible for running up oil and food prices and causing worldwide hunger in 2008 doesn't get excuses, even if she had nothing to do with those activities.

Goldman Sachs is a criminal organization deriving hyperprofit from actions of global piracy, plunder and effectively mass murder. No one person runs the show, various functions are undertaken in making possible the eventual bottom line. A key part of that is distracting from the criminality by engaging on the side in some ostensible charity to a few of the victims of capitalism. Blunting potential opposition by spreading a bit of money around, especially in New York. However, after Goldman's immense atrocity became so internationally prominent during the crisis, I would have respected someone willing to walk away from the perks of such a job by making her resignation as loud as possible. But then she wouldn't be considered for new jobs in management positions, would she now?

Goldman Sachs, of course, shouldn't exist. It should have been liquidated along with the other TBTFs in 2008. Instead they were rescued at an enormous expense to the public, so that they could emerge more powerful and more enabled to engage in mass crime than before. Did they throw some obols afterwards at the worthy poor? Was this lady one who got to put a smile on the affair?

New York City has hundreds of CEOs of housing and development groups that aren't Goldman Sachs to choose from. Your assertion that she's the only one for the job is ludicrous! Such an appointment is a signal to the ruling class and everyone else who doesn't have blinders on that it will be business as usual with at best the appearance of reform, just like Bratton -- just like the choice of Rahm Emanuel by Obama as his first appointment.

Tale of two cities. Where's the other one?

[TomClash]

25. Yeah whatever

You missed the point entirely.

[JackRiddler]

28. Thank you for projecting your non-argument

on to me.

"Yeah, whatever" = "Got nothing but platitudes and lame excuses for anything the guy with the (D) does once elected, even if he recruits his appointments straight from the Death Star command deck."

[TomClash]

31. So then why don't you join the DeBlasio Administration?

You can help lead it on a righteous path away from the Death Star command deck. The Administration could use committed progressives like you because many progressives would rather criticize than govern, leaving the governing to your friends on the Deck.

[JackRiddler]

32. So there! Dismissed! Boo-yeah!

From the way you talk, I'm sure you've often served in high offices, or at least wandered over to transition teams, nominated yourself and received interviews for appointments to cabinets. That's the normal lot and duty of all citizens in a democracy, right? Therefore (jumping as you do a few steps that couldn't possibly have logic in them) the eight million New Yorkers who wouldn't fit on the command deck should shut up and fuck off, the irresponsible losers, and let Bill pick the professionals from Goldman Sachs to shoulder the terrible sacrifice of Friendly Governance.

[TomClash]

33. I wasn't dismissing you

I was serious. Why don't you join the Administration? Many jobs are available and they are looking for qualified people. Why not?

[SpartanDem]

38. For one that's what she did did before she worked a Goldman

[blkmusclmachine]

12. 11-Dimensional rope-a-dupe. "Bi-partisanship." Best he could do. MUST. LOOK. FORWARD.

What other BS lies have our so-called "DEMS/libs/progressives" used to enact a right-of-center agenda?

[blkmusclmachine]

13. Oh, yeah. There was also "Hope," "Change," and "WTF" ("Win The Future").

[zazen]

2. it may be that Ms. Glen is sincere, as sincere as it's possible for GS' folks to be

I want to believe that not all Wall St. appointees have to be inherently corrupt. It may be that they arose in one system as the rules/regulations grew more lax but would be open to serious reform if it meant they could stay in business but improve the economy overall (because ultimately, inequality hurts everybody, as many of them have to be realizing.)

Maybe, just maybe, she'll do something positive and help make inroads with some of her peers. One can hope. ??

[NoOneMan]

3. It takes a lot of hope

In any case, it just seams tone deaf, and that just seems incompatible with this man

[colbertforpresident]

6. Meet the new boss

same as the old boss.....

[blkmusclmachine]

11. +1.

"The banks own the place."

[blkmusclmachine]

9. Keeping it in "The Family."

They're not even trying to fake it up, anymore.

[TomClash]

14. It's not his first appointee

He chose pretty damn progressive guys as his PC, Deputy Mayor and Budget Director, though. I don't know Alicia Glen.

[LeftyMom]

16. The police commissioner he appointed supports Stop and Frisk.

If that's progressive I'm a water skiing squirrel.

[TomClash]

18. Not true - Bratton abandoned it long ago

Ask the LA ACLU, which praised Bratton.

The new Mayor hates stop and frisk. He has seen it up close and personal.

[LeftyMom]

19. They're promising to "reform" Stop and Frisk, not to end it.

"Bill Bratton knows when it comes to stop and frisk it has to be used with respect, it has to be used properly." -de Blasio

"Applied in the right way, it can have the effect of reducing crime." -Bratton

It was Bratton's policy to begin with.

[TomClash]

23. Stop and frisk started as an academic theory

. . . to use fewer police. It wasn't "Bratton's policy"

Reforming stop and frisk means following the law, not routinely breaking it. In effect, Bratton said so himself: "You can't break the law to enforce it." Do you think that was Ray Kelly's policy?

[LeftyMom]

34. Political appointees don't generally announce that they're breaking the law with their policies.

See the past three decades of American history.

Stop and Frisk is a racist policy. There's no way to make it not be racist, because who is subject to detention and search without cause is decided by the assumptions and intuitions of people who live in (and work within a particularly racist subset of) a racist society.

Searches without cause are a violation of the fourth amendment. There is no reform that would make the policy constitutional.

It is not a tactic which can be reformed, because it is inherently unjust.

[TomClash]

35. Re-read your post

It contains the answer to how "stop and frisk" will be reformed.

[LeftyMom]

36. Oh, this ought to be good.

'Splain.

[TomClash]

37. The reform is that they will follow the law

That makes most stops pretty difficult to justify. So they pretty much will be gone. I suspect we will try a combination of more cops, community policing and more tech.

Is that entertaining enough for you?

[adirondacker]

21. "Ms. Glen said she did not think her co-workers at Goldman would object to paying higher taxes"

I'm sure their offshore accounts will be off limits.

[OnyxCollie]

26. What? Was no one from the Blackstone Group interested?

[JackRiddler]

29. No one else in New York knows housing and development.

No one, I tell you!

[Penicilino]

27. That's ok. He was a hippy once

And that's what matters.

[JackRiddler]

30. Hippie. Anyway. Yeah.