The framers did anticipate this and they tried to prevent it, but there’s no document or declaration that can stop evil; it’s the people that must. You aptly pointed out the facts: 12 trillion in wealth gone, a racist ideologue demagogue in the White House, and the most advanced, secure, and wealthy nation in the world on the brink in a matter of less than a year.

It’s definitely not normal market gyration, and it’s absolutely not your run-of-the-mill recession/depression. It isn’t big business – it’s big businesses run by big liberals who love the idea of marrying big liberal business with big liberal government.

And Sachs isn’t the only one that is going to be handed a monopoly. AT&T, Apple, GE, Disney, and all their supplementing media, energy and communication businesses all stand to benefit in the same manner.

I’ll write it again – it’s not the dark side of capitalism; it’s not big business – it’s the exact opposite. It’s corrupt liberal statism.

Sachs sure has had it’s hand in a lot of evil financial affairs, and now again seems to be well positioned to make a new fortune in Cap and Tax trading.

The author is a leftist, and conveniently omits the government’s domineering hand in the financial crisis. The lefties like to blame everthing on business, you know.

But even given that prejudice, the account seems to make a lot of sense

My basic position is and has been that October and November of 2008 was not a time of normal market gyrations. Something exceptionally strange was going on. I believe it was because big money and big nation states were interfering to get Obamy elected. I don’t know and it will probably never be public knowledge what happened…..but after reading this, it sure looks like Sachs and Sachs alumni were right in the middle of it.

The author’s account makes perfect sense if you believe like I do that 9/2008 and 10/2008, the months that ruined America, were rigged, and that fortune’s were stolen to widen the gap between the comissars/aristocracy and us.

The headline for the Huffington Post right now is an article in RollingStone of all places – and as I’m reading it, this just seems like it might be a breakout piece if it can hit the mainstream. I encourage anyone reading this post to read this article. Really.

This all just keeps getting weirder and weirder.

The Great American Bubble Machine
Matt Taibbi on how Goldman Sachs has engineered every major market manipulation since the Great Depression
http://www.rollingstone.com/po.....le_machine

Any attempt to construct a narrative around all the former Goldmanites in influential positions quickly becomes an absurd and pointless exercise, like trying to make a list of everything. What you need to know is the big picture: If America is circling the drain, Goldman Sachs has found a way to be that drain — an extremely unfortunate loophole in the system of Western democratic capitalism, which never foresaw that in a society governed passively by free markets and free elections, organized greed always defeats disorganized democracy.

[On the housing and interest bust]

It sounds obvious now, but what the average investor didn’t know at the time was that the banks had changed the rules of the game, making the deals look better than they actually were. They did this by setting up what was, in reality, a two-tiered investment system — one for the insiders who knew the real numbers, and another for the lay investor who was invited to chase soaring prices the banks themselves knew were irrational. While Goldman’s later pattern would be to capitalize on changes in the regulatory environment, its key innovation in the Internet years was to abandon its own industry’s standards of quality control.

[On TARP and Onwards]

After the oil bubble collapsed last fall, there was no new bubble to keep things humming — this time, the money seems to be really gone, like worldwide-depression gone. So the financial safari has moved elsewhere, and the big game in the hunt has become the only remaining pool of dumb, unguarded capital left to feed upon: taxpayer money. Here, in the biggest bailout in history, is where Goldman Sachs really started to flex its muscle.

[On How Sachs Will Profit in the New America]

Fast-forward to today. It’s early June in Washington, D.C. Barack Obama, a popular young politician whose leading private campaign donor was an investment bank called Goldman Sachs — its employees paid some $981,000 to his campaign — sits in the White House. Having seamlessly navigated the political minefield of the bailout era, Goldman is once again back to its old business, scouting out loopholes in a new government-created market with the aid of a new set of alumni occupying key government jobs.

[...]And instead of credit derivatives or oil futures or mortgage-backed CDOs, the new game in town, the next bubble, is in carbon credits — a booming trillion- dollar market that barely even exists yet, but will if the Democratic Party that it gave $4,452,585 to in the last election manages to push into existence a groundbreaking new commodities bubble, disguised as an “environmental plan,” called cap-and-trade. The new carbon-credit market is a virtual repeat of the commodities-market casino that’s been kind to Goldman, except it has one delicious new wrinkle: If the plan goes forward as expected, the rise in prices will be government-mandated. Goldman won’t even have to rig the game. It will be rigged in advance.

WOW.

The thing you didn’t mention is that Henry Paulsen (and Bernake) is the guy who rushed into Dubya’s office the day of the $5 Trillion “run on Money Market accounts” September 18, 2008 that triggered the panic that resulted in TARP. The $5 Trillion figure has been disputed. Little information is known about it, and it was probably only a few hundred million, and perhaps confined to funds at major capital market companies, and not a general run at all. Nevertheless, it was the trigger for TARP.

The “Money Market run” was presented as the event that was going to end civilization if IMMEDIATE action was not taken. Action HAD to be taken within hours, and it does seem that Money Market trading was shut down by the government on the 18th for part of the day.

During the prior week, Lehman Bros had been brought down by short-sellers, and the Fed mysteriously siezed it the weekend before the Money Market run. The Lehman Bros attack week was immediately after Sarah Palin made a huge impact at the GOP convention and McCain took the lead for the first time in Gallup. That Monday, market volume increased about 50% and Lehman Bros came under attack.

The TARP episode was the one where McCain make a fool of himself by coming off the campaign trail to go to Washington only to vote as one of the robots agreeing to a bailout they knew nothing about. Obama basically remained neutral, but did humiliate himself in an unpublicized meeting where he conducted himself like the adolescent he is. The media, of course, never reported it.

Within 3 weeks TARP had passed. During those 4 weeks, it appeared the stock market would crumble completely, and that extremely erratic action continued for a few weeks beyond the election. Note: George Soros has been convicted of market manipulation by Hungary for his activities during this period.

It has alway been difficult for me to explain Paulsen’s actions, although it’s well known he is a democrat, particularly since Paulsen did nothing with the TARP money for weeks after it was first allocated.

But tn seems to be onto the explanation.

Sachs is part of the deal.

(But anyone who suggests it is a nutty conspiracty theorist. The official version is that there were no events in this period that even merit investigation. Of course, civilization did almost fail, America lost $12 trillion in wealth, and a college sophomore who never had a job was elected the most powerful man in the world….and has since demonstrated his radical bonafides….but the events of that period that made it all possible…..simply not worthy of interest by any serious journalist).

Here’s a compendium on what I know on Sachs so far. Grabbed most of this research myself from various reports dating back through the year. Steve already posted the great video to which I linked here of Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D) ripping Geithner on the issue.

“Maxine Exposes Goldman-Sachs Conspiracy”
From S&L Mar. 24, 2009:
http://sweetness-light.com/arc.....conspiracy

The left’s ‘cookie jar’ Goldman Sachs (chief rival of AIG, Lehman Brothers, Morgan-Stanley) the facts:
- $5 billion invested in September of 2008 by Warren Buffett and has already made a $1 billion return.
- Strong holdings by Soros, including a 40% increase made between October – December of last year.
- Has a company history of leaning left, endorsing global warming alarmism, making donations to Nature/Rainforest conservancy groups and other initiatives such as Jesse Jackson’s Organization.
- Was blamed for the Depression using similar tactics in the The Great Crash, 1929 by economist John Kenneth Galbraith
- Voluntarily received $9.8 billion in TARP for one of its faltering Hedge Funds (which it has vowed to pay back to escape the grasp of the regulators crushing their competition)
- Paying $11 billion in bonuses this year (AIG incurred populist outrage and employee death threats over $1.2 billion)
- On track for it’s best year ever (Lehman bankrupt, AIG 79% government owned; former CEO Maurice Greenberg “was bewildered by the situation and was at a loss over how the entire situation got out of control as it did.”)

- Former Goldman board member Ed Liddy current government appointed CEO of AIG (His salary: $1. His personal investment in Sachs: $3 million)
- Henry Paulson, architect of TARP, former CEO of Sachs.
- Robert Rubin, Clinton Treasury Sect., architect of Community Reinvestment Act that brought forth the Sub-prime bubble, former CEO of Sachs.
- Lil’ Timmy Geithner, President of the NY Fed who helped Paulson position Goldman on the throne, and who also helped cripple Bank of America with Merrill Lynch.

It’s odd but I haven’t found a single source for facts like this other than some wacky conspiracy theorists. However, research just the surface of Sachs history and you see it’s littered with dirty business practice claims, high profile names in the government, and as you aptly noted – the fact that it is not only surviving but thriving while all of it’s competitors are nearly dead.

Tranquil_night is on this.

It appears that Goldman Sachs could be a member of the ObamySoros Cabal.

I’m interested to read more about that if anyone has links about it.