You proceed from a false premise. It wasn’t her husband’s bank; her husband, who has his own career as a business consultant, was asked to join the board of the bank in question; board members were required to buy stock in the institution.
It’s incredible to me that anyone can look at the last eight years of cronyism and use that word to describe anything Maxine Waters has ever done in her career.
sadlyyes says:
take a bow
funniest line evah
“splaining cap&trade to Jake Tapper is like teaching a cat algebra.
Hold the righteous indignation. Maxine was grilling TG on conflict of interest, yet clearly had her own problem in the banking crisis.
She intervened on behalf of a bank in which her husband had been on the board and owned stocks. She did not disclose the relationship before intervening.
No matter how much we like Maxine and her commitment to progressivism, you shouldn’t pass up delicious irony when you see it.
bell says:
gs is one corrupt organization… it would figure they would ’manage’ the same stuff they helped create, all on the qt of course….only a matter of time i guess..
manys says:
she needs to get off the “decisionmakers” term, perhaps by consulting a thesaurus or something to arrive at “lobbyists,” “advisers,” etc. she’s making it too easy for geithner to parse his way out of the questions.
The firm [Goldman Sachs] is saying it just can’t handle the level of government oversight that comes along with the funds, especially amid the outrage over AIG bonuses. “It’s just impossible to run our business in this environment,” one exec told the Times’ Andrew Ross Sorkin.
I saw this quote over at TPM and I thought what a raw deal Goldman is getting. I think it is perfectly reasonable for them to repay the TARP money and avoid a buch of unwanted oversight. In fact, I think it would be even more reasonable to rescind their status as a bank holding company. That way they would have even less oversight. I say let’s give Goldman what they want and more.
I should explain of course it might make it impossible for Goldman to borrow money for even a morning coffee if it doesn’t have access to the Fed but I am sure this is something they would gladly forego for greater independence.
Teddy Partridge says:
I don’t beleive Geithner understands the anger in America at the interconnectedness of the web at the center of which is Goldman Sachs and its incredibly wealthy and privileged executives.
And I love Maxine. I am so glad she asked these questions.
Demeur says:
This is definitely the fox guarding the hen house.
MiriamKniaz says:
I agree with Waters – there is way too much Goldman Sachs throughout this whole process. It smells bsd.
Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and JPMorgan are probably the most dangerous, morally challenged financial players out there. I would add in UBS but technically they’re foreign.
I have been pushing the meme recently of all of Goldman’s connections because I think it is important to realize that Goldman is a bank holding company in name only. It is still the predator investment house it always was. What Maxine Waters is pointing to is more than a revolving door. It is that Goldman has effectively infiltrated the Treasury and our bailout programs. And there is no real distinction for Goldman between itself and the government. If it wants money from the government, it gets it. It must have offended those at Goldman though to get it directly like they did. Much better to get it under the table through their man at AIG Edward Liddy. More degrees of separation. More deniability.
The other thing you need to understand about Goldman is that while it is very powerful, it does not do one useful thing for either us or our economy. It simply feeds off the paper economy. That is why it is so happy about Geithner’s doomed plans to re-inflate the housing bubble. That means it can go back to its old speculative ways. That is also why oversight in any form is so onerous to it. What Goldman likes to do, it likes to do in the dark.
PPDCUS says:
GS, JPMC, MS: What you are describing is a congenital paradox. These corporations are both predatory & parasitic.
It will take more in congress like Bernie Sanders to block a hostile takeover of our government by these financial oligarchs.
Bipartisanship and faux centrism is the Shock Doctrine’s fertile crescent.
This is an excellent, plain-talk expose which gives details I have seen no place else. (hat tip to tx49holdem for link)
I would like to see one of your fine diaries on this article. If you have already written one, please tell me approximate date and whether it was at FDL, EW, or Oxdown.
Meanwhile, companies that actually manufacture stuff are suffering. From the neighborhood grapevine, HP has announced that everybody has to take a week off, using either paid vacation time or leave w/o pay.
We went around the table with news and pretty much everyone had grim economic stuff to share. But GS is doing great. Yay.
Litlflea says:
I’m a newbie to this site. Hope I found me a good home. I am an outside the box, opinioned, thinker.
Watching Rep. Waters today made me question myself, is she a democrat or a want-a-be republican? Geithner tried to flex his style of communication to hers, but it came out looking like he was dissing her. She just kept asking questions and did not give him a chance to answer them. It made me think of a trial judge. ‘Facts plz, just the facts. A simple yes or no is all I need to hang you’. I played interactive tv and kept yelling for her to just shut up already.
Maybe an alternative candidate w/ previous CFTC experience by the name of Brooksley Born would be the best fit to best represent taxpayer interests. She tried to warn Greenspan about the risky nature of derivatives back in 1998 but was squelched by political wrangling. See this link
for the full story as titled: Prophet and Loss, [Tuesday, March 24, 2009], from Stanford
acquarius74 says:
Thanks for the link, tx49holdem. Brooksley Born is one tough lady! We need her as head of SEC to replace Christopher Cox, and without delay!
tx49holdem says:
See this link http://www.godlikeproductions……744619/pg1
& story titled AIG-Gate is Now China-Gate by Tom Heneghan
International Intelligence Expert
He asserts that it is important to note that Senator Dianne Feinstein’s investment banker husband Richard Blum’s various companies are in the process of being linked to the AIG-Bernard Madoff illegal London trading platform Chinese and Singapore Ponzi Scheme – the firms include C.B. Richard Ellis, New Bridge Capital and Blum Capital.
The entire bailout and financial scandal smells distinctly like another dirty inside job on a never before dreamed of scale! There has never been anything quite so smelly…
guydesrochers says:
Economist paul krugman has characterized the geithner toxic asset reduction plan as warmed over henry paulson strategy, only made more complex and partially legitimized by government involvement. The best I can gather is that wall street was elated with the geithner plan, which makes me very suspicious. It would appear that investors in these toxic instruments take zero risk for buying these assets, with the government, ie the taxpayer, left holding the bag if the investment does not work out.
Conspicuously absent in the plan: any discussion of valuation and regulation of these entities and the products they will be foisting on unsuspecting investors…. Why do I feel we are being bilked once again?
I guess she needs to figure out who to call to bail out her husband’s bank.
You proceed from a false premise. It wasn’t her husband’s bank; her husband, who has his own career as a business consultant, was asked to join the board of the bank in question; board members were required to buy stock in the institution.
It’s incredible to me that anyone can look at the last eight years of cronyism and use that word to describe anything Maxine Waters has ever done in her career.
take a bow
funniest line evah
“splaining cap&trade to Jake Tapper is like teaching a cat algebra.
Hold the righteous indignation. Maxine was grilling TG on conflict of interest, yet clearly had her own problem in the banking crisis.
She intervened on behalf of a bank in which her husband had been on the board and owned stocks. She did not disclose the relationship before intervening.
No matter how much we like Maxine and her commitment to progressivism, you shouldn’t pass up delicious irony when you see it.
gs is one corrupt organization… it would figure they would ’manage’ the same stuff they helped create, all on the qt of course….only a matter of time i guess..
she needs to get off the “decisionmakers” term, perhaps by consulting a thesaurus or something to arrive at “lobbyists,” “advisers,” etc. she’s making it too easy for geithner to parse his way out of the questions.
I pointed this out in the last
http://emptywheel.firedoglake……xic-waste/
I saw this quote over at TPM and I thought what a raw deal Goldman is getting. I think it is perfectly reasonable for them to repay the TARP money and avoid a buch of unwanted oversight. In fact, I think it would be even more reasonable to rescind their status as a bank holding company. That way they would have even less oversight. I say let’s give Goldman what they want and more.
I should explain of course it might make it impossible for Goldman to borrow money for even a morning coffee if it doesn’t have access to the Fed but I am sure this is something they would gladly forego for greater independence.
I don’t beleive Geithner understands the anger in America at the interconnectedness of the web at the center of which is Goldman Sachs and its incredibly wealthy and privileged executives.
And I love Maxine. I am so glad she asked these questions.
This is definitely the fox guarding the hen house.
I agree with Waters – there is way too much Goldman Sachs throughout this whole process. It smells bsd.
Regardless of how bad it smells, it IS bad.
Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and JPMorgan are probably the most dangerous, morally challenged financial players out there. I would add in UBS but technically they’re foreign.
I have been pushing the meme recently of all of Goldman’s connections because I think it is important to realize that Goldman is a bank holding company in name only. It is still the predator investment house it always was. What Maxine Waters is pointing to is more than a revolving door. It is that Goldman has effectively infiltrated the Treasury and our bailout programs. And there is no real distinction for Goldman between itself and the government. If it wants money from the government, it gets it. It must have offended those at Goldman though to get it directly like they did. Much better to get it under the table through their man at AIG Edward Liddy. More degrees of separation. More deniability.
The other thing you need to understand about Goldman is that while it is very powerful, it does not do one useful thing for either us or our economy. It simply feeds off the paper economy. That is why it is so happy about Geithner’s doomed plans to re-inflate the housing bubble. That means it can go back to its old speculative ways. That is also why oversight in any form is so onerous to it. What Goldman likes to do, it likes to do in the dark.
GS, JPMC, MS: What you are describing is a congenital paradox. These corporations are both predatory & parasitic.
It will take more in congress like Bernie Sanders to block a hostile takeover of our government by these financial oligarchs.
Bipartisanship and faux centrism is the Shock Doctrine’s fertile crescent.
Hugh, there is a long article in Rolling Stone by Matt Taibbi entitled, ‘The Big Takeover which reveals more about the AIG big stakes gamble (Cassano), more revelations about Goldman Sachs, and the whole stinking mess.
This is an excellent, plain-talk expose which gives details I have seen no place else. (hat tip to tx49holdem for link)
I would like to see one of your fine diaries on this article. If you have already written one, please tell me approximate date and whether it was at FDL, EW, or Oxdown.
Thanks, Hugh, for all your work.
Meanwhile, companies that actually manufacture stuff are suffering. From the neighborhood grapevine, HP has announced that everybody has to take a week off, using either paid vacation time or leave w/o pay.
We went around the table with news and pretty much everyone had grim economic stuff to share. But GS is doing great. Yay.
I’m a newbie to this site. Hope I found me a good home. I am an outside the box, opinioned, thinker.
Watching Rep. Waters today made me question myself, is she a democrat or a want-a-be republican? Geithner tried to flex his style of communication to hers, but it came out looking like he was dissing her. She just kept asking questions and did not give him a chance to answer them. It made me think of a trial judge. ‘Facts plz, just the facts. A simple yes or no is all I need to hang you’. I played interactive tv and kept yelling for her to just shut up already.
video of jane on maddow up at fdl
Maybe an alternative candidate w/ previous CFTC experience by the name of Brooksley Born would be the best fit to best represent taxpayer interests. She tried to warn Greenspan about the risky nature of derivatives back in 1998 but was squelched by political wrangling. See this link
http://www.bullionmark.blogspot.com
for the full story as titled: Prophet and Loss, [Tuesday, March 24, 2009], from Stanford
Thanks for the link, tx49holdem. Brooksley Born is one tough lady! We need her as head of SEC to replace Christopher Cox, and without delay!
See this link http://www.godlikeproductions……744619/pg1
& story titled AIG-Gate is Now China-Gate by Tom Heneghan
International Intelligence Expert
He asserts that it is important to note that Senator Dianne Feinstein’s investment banker husband Richard Blum’s various companies are in the process of being linked to the AIG-Bernard Madoff illegal London trading platform Chinese and Singapore Ponzi Scheme – the firms include C.B. Richard Ellis, New Bridge Capital and Blum Capital.
The entire bailout and financial scandal smells distinctly like another dirty inside job on a never before dreamed of scale! There has never been anything quite so smelly…
Economist paul krugman has characterized the geithner toxic asset reduction plan as warmed over henry paulson strategy, only made more complex and partially legitimized by government involvement. The best I can gather is that wall street was elated with the geithner plan, which makes me very suspicious. It would appear that investors in these toxic instruments take zero risk for buying these assets, with the government, ie the taxpayer, left holding the bag if the investment does not work out.
Conspicuously absent in the plan: any discussion of valuation and regulation of these entities and the products they will be foisting on unsuspecting investors…. Why do I feel we are being bilked once again?