Paulson -- secret meetings prior to bail-outs?

[JDPriestly]

From the Huffington Post

Warning that Americans of the continuing influence and control of Wall Street insiders' embedded in the Obama administration, Linda Keenan questions Paulson's loyalties during the period preceding the 2008 bail-out in this article in the Huffington Post. You need to read the whole article, but here are some interesting paragraphs.


Paulson brought in several recently "retired" Goldman bankers to assist in the bailout, including Dan Jester. He was hired as a "contractor", not a government employee, with far fewer rules to contend with, and he appeared to be Paulson's de facto representative in these high-stakes meetings. Jester's story is a stark example of the flexian in action: a player whose influence isn't conveyed by mere titles, who fuses state and private power, and for whom the question "who is he?" is difficult to answer. William Cohan, writing in the New York Times , summed up what this "contractor" was involved in.
Jester seems to have had his finger in every pie: the rescue of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, the A.I.G. calamity, the decisions to bailout Citigroup, G.M. and Chrysler, and the creation of the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

Cohan cites a report suggesting Jester was holding Goldman stock during much of his backroom negotiating. Whose interests was Jester representing during those meetings that would affect the entire global economy? Again, we may never know. The Times reported in 2008 this: "...according to the Treasury Department, hired as and not required to disclose financial holdings."

And consider this account of Goldman's shadow influence, from a Washington Post review of Andrew Ross Sorkin's book Too Big to Fail:
Sorkin documents a meeting .... between Paulson ... (former head of Goldman Sachs), and the board of Goldman Sachs. As the storm clouds gathered at the end of June 2008, Paulson spent an evening talking substance with the board -- while agreeing not to record this "social" meeting in his official calendar. We do not know the content of the conversation, but the appearance of this kind of exclusive interaction shows how little our top officials care about public perceptions of favoritism.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/linda-keenan/emshadow-eliteem-goldman_b_547500.html

Many of us are already aware of these facts, but we need to keep them in mind as Congress proposes new regulations on Wall Street. These regulations do not begin to deal with the underlying problem which is
the imbalance in our government between the influence of large corporations, banks and Wall Street and the rest of us. It is not that large corporations, banks and Wall Street should have no influence. It is that their influence should be in balance with the influence of the interests of ordinary Americans.

And right now there is a total imbalance. Everything -- our out of control war machine, our ailing schools, our environment, nearly all of our problems are related in some way to the fact that a few institutions and individuals who have no knowledge, understanding or in some cases even contact with ordinary Americand have far too much money and power in our system. Some of the powers behind the Paulsons and the Rubins are not American citizens. I'm thinking of the Saudi princes among others. Why should they be involved in our government at all? Even indirectly?

[midnight]

1. Many of us have been very unpleased about this imbalance, and wonder

why Elizabeth Warren isn't allowed to fire the whole lot of them, and replace them with govt. workers, and not contractors who love this country more than their stock piles of money.....

[truedelphi]

2. She and Neil Barofsky are the Administration's token "honest" people

Who are truly free of industry connections.

But the non-industry connected people are somewhat like the people of color in days of yore - you can only go so far unless you are part of the Entitlement Class.

So until the two of them let AIG and GS know they are willing to accept an executive position in either firm after their government tenure, the two of them won't get much of a chance to do anything but rearrange the chairs on the deck of the sinking ship.

Just as the lower class did in the days of yore - rearrange them chairs and keep 'em clean! And never mind that iceberg straight ahead.

[truedelphi]

3. A point I feel the need to make - when people in Congress start telling

the public about "regulations" perhaps getting enacted - what they are really doing is to signal to lobbyists that it is now time for them to show up at the Congressional offices and make the pledge for campaign funding.

That is why there have been at least three posts at DU in the last few days about how Glass Steagall is not even being considered as part of the new "Regulatory Act"

I mean, maybe Bernie Sanders is considering it - but that is about it.

[JDPriestly]

6. Thank you, truedelphi. You are, unfortunately, correct.

[laughingliberal]

4. knr. nt

[EFerrari]

5. Am I confused or was this already reported months ago?

I'm used to the torture stories being repeatedly reported as if for the first time.

Is that happening here or am I missing something?