creep-age
So, of the four choices, you guys picked the one I least care about. I knew I chose the last post's title correctly.
Just antecdotally, Paulson was an assistant to John Erlichman, one of Richard Nixon's scummiest advisors, during Watergate. Paulson started with Goldman in the early 80s and worked his way up from there. Goldman is a firm known for it's 'on the edge' tactics. They skirt the law, they do anything for the dollar against outside firms, they compete with each other inside the firm as dog eat dog. (I used to work for Spear Leeds and Kellogg in the 80s and 90s, a similar but smaller firm. SLK was eventually taken over by Goldman.) It would be nearly impossible imo to rise through the ranks of Goldman to stand on top of the hill without having done a lot of things that Erlichman would have approved of.
But to the meat of the matter. Paulson was instrumental in bailing out AIG. Goldman was one of AIG's largest counterparties (if not the largest) in many dealings. Paulson showered his friends with government money, saving them billions. As treasury secretary, he made sure his friends and ex-firm were kept above water, while simultaneously allowing a few of Goldman's best competitors to fail. And as further conjecture, you don't become treasury secretary in the middle of a president's second term by accident. It would surprise me if, somewhere in the future, GW Bush doesn't gain financial benefit indirectly from Goldman.
Washington D.C. is corrupt, especially at the highest levels.
Ben Bernanke is a stooge generally by doing exactly what the Street most wants, namely, pumping up liquidity, taking onto the Fed balance sheet billions in toxic assets, and devaluing the USDollar as necessary to (supposedly) ameliorate almost any financial crisis. But he is specifically a Stooge for, under orders, forcing Bank of America to consume Merril Lynch even after they had discovered things on the balance sheet that wanted them to back out of the takeover. BAC backing out right then would have been hell on the markets, and the president and treasury secretary didn't want that, so they got Bernanke's people to be the bad guy in forcing BAC to not only swallow Merrill (and further, not even talk about any of the problems.) (As a (presumably) unrelated note, ex-Goldman guy John Thain was currently heading Merril, trying to save it.)
Greenspan is evil cause he knew what he was doing to the economy by providing the Greenspan Put, but he did it anyway. He may try to distance himself now by saying he had no idea this could all happen, but if he knew, he was evil, and if he didn't, he was an idiot stooge himself. I choose the evil explanation.
(If you want back up reading or citing for the impetus to any of these conclusions, feel free to type any of these names into Wikipedia and read the entries. I'm too tired now to make all the hyperlink connections. And besides, I am still a tad annoyed to write about these trash next when y'all could have chosen a discussion of why millions of children die every year in Africa from the treatable diseases Malaria and TB.)
Just antecdotally, Paulson was an assistant to John Erlichman, one of Richard Nixon's scummiest advisors, during Watergate. Paulson started with Goldman in the early 80s and worked his way up from there. Goldman is a firm known for it's 'on the edge' tactics. They skirt the law, they do anything for the dollar against outside firms, they compete with each other inside the firm as dog eat dog. (I used to work for Spear Leeds and Kellogg in the 80s and 90s, a similar but smaller firm. SLK was eventually taken over by Goldman.) It would be nearly impossible imo to rise through the ranks of Goldman to stand on top of the hill without having done a lot of things that Erlichman would have approved of.
But to the meat of the matter. Paulson was instrumental in bailing out AIG. Goldman was one of AIG's largest counterparties (if not the largest) in many dealings. Paulson showered his friends with government money, saving them billions. As treasury secretary, he made sure his friends and ex-firm were kept above water, while simultaneously allowing a few of Goldman's best competitors to fail. And as further conjecture, you don't become treasury secretary in the middle of a president's second term by accident. It would surprise me if, somewhere in the future, GW Bush doesn't gain financial benefit indirectly from Goldman.
Washington D.C. is corrupt, especially at the highest levels.
Ben Bernanke is a stooge generally by doing exactly what the Street most wants, namely, pumping up liquidity, taking onto the Fed balance sheet billions in toxic assets, and devaluing the USDollar as necessary to (supposedly) ameliorate almost any financial crisis. But he is specifically a Stooge for, under orders, forcing Bank of America to consume Merril Lynch even after they had discovered things on the balance sheet that wanted them to back out of the takeover. BAC backing out right then would have been hell on the markets, and the president and treasury secretary didn't want that, so they got Bernanke's people to be the bad guy in forcing BAC to not only swallow Merrill (and further, not even talk about any of the problems.) (As a (presumably) unrelated note, ex-Goldman guy John Thain was currently heading Merril, trying to save it.)
Greenspan is evil cause he knew what he was doing to the economy by providing the Greenspan Put, but he did it anyway. He may try to distance himself now by saying he had no idea this could all happen, but if he knew, he was evil, and if he didn't, he was an idiot stooge himself. I choose the evil explanation.
(If you want back up reading or citing for the impetus to any of these conclusions, feel free to type any of these names into Wikipedia and read the entries. I'm too tired now to make all the hyperlink connections. And besides, I am still a tad annoyed to write about these trash next when y'all could have chosen a discussion of why millions of children die every year in Africa from the treatable diseases Malaria and TB.)