The Goldman Sachs Project Continues

[StlSluggers]

This is The Goldman Sachs Project. Put simply, it is to hug governments close. Every business wants to advance its interests with the regulators that can stymie them and the politicians who can give them a tax break, but this is no mere lobbying effort. Goldman is there to provide advice for governments and to provide financing, to send its people into public service and to dangle lucrative jobs in front of people coming out of government. The Project is to create such a deep exchange of people and ideas and money that it is impossible to tell the difference between the public interest and the Goldman Sachs interest.

[GoodOl'Days]

I believe we are living through the collapse of western culture. The ruling elite, which is made up financial oligarchs, not our governments (as the media would have us believe) are coming out of hiding now. This indicates how worried they are about the reliability of the financial systems and possible interference through the power of people. Our economies do not need the financial sector to function. Less than 10% of banking investment goes into the productive economy – the majority goes on short term loans for financial market trading, and long term non-productive loans on commercial and private real estate. The financial sector has starved the productive economy of resources, stifles innovation, and is preventing us from embracing new economic systems that take into account the finite resource problem, and equitable distraction. We know this, we know we do not need the financial sector as it is currently configured. I am not saying we don’t need an entity like a bank to distribute economic surpluses, but we don’t need to tie up a significant proportion of our resources moving money back and forth for no productive purpose beyond enriching a small number of individuals.We know that a sensible approach to the current dilemma would include a systematic and orderly process of debt forgiveness which protects the productive economy. We know that the levels of debt – personal and private are unsustainable. What is standing in the way - financial oligarchs, the powers of corporations like Goldman Sachs, Barclays, JP Morgan, CitiBank and so on. The market makers in the financial sector are desperate to keep their system functioning and cannot wait to go through the motions of democracy. They are incapable of reform, they have corrupted our culture and there is no future with them. This is collapse – of them – not us.

[GoodOl'Days]

Dylan Ratigan isn't as gloomy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIcqb9hHQ3E

[zepfan]

Dylan Ratigan isn't as gloomy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIcqb9hHQ3E

I've never seen that guy before but that was awesome.

[StlSluggers]

Yeah, that was nice

[zepfan]

Figured I'd throw this in here since it's more government/banking stuff.

This is pretty much the biggest amount of money I've heard of since I started paying attention. In any case I'm sure they were entitled to it, unlike those OWS scum.

The Federal Reserve's 'breathtaking' $7.7 trillion bank bailout

[StlSluggers]

Figured I'd throw this in here since it's more government/banking stuff.

This is pretty much the biggest amount of money I've heard of since I started paying attention. In any case I'm sure they were entitled to it, unlike those OWS scum.

The Federal Reserve's 'breathtaking' $7.7 trillion bank bailout

I've read a couple of those stories before, and if I understood them correctly, there was a little sensationalism in that total figure.

For instance, the 'peak borrowed' figure shows that even the worst off never owed more than around $110B at any given moment. Even if every bank owed that much all at once, there would had to have been 70 banks borrowing that much money all at the same time. There weren't. Only 6 banks even topped $75B at any given moment. So the way that $7.7T figure was derived was like this:

Bank A borrows $100B
Bank A repays $100B and reborrows $110B
Editor writes headline saying "Government loans $210B to save bank"

Yeah, it's sorta true... but not really. If you look here, I think the $1.2T figure is more accurate of the single-largest amount loaned out at any given time. That's about $500B more than the TARP. Not really 'dwarfing' as that main article says.

I'm not saying this to say the banks were angels. Just some clarity on the headline and what it means.

[zepfan]

Hmm... Yeah I did some more searching and found some articles saying the number was blown out of of proportion since most of it had been paid back. It's insane the amount of homework people have to do to figure even the simplest things. Even Jon Stewart (whom I usually consider to be pretty good for putting things into perspective) talked about this and didn't mention the 1.2 trillion number.

I'm taking just as much interest in the actual story as I am to how close to the truth it is as well as the source it comes from these days. I'm thinking maybe waiting several weeks after a story breaks to get more angles is probably the best bet at this point. It's crazy trying to keep up but it's fascinating at the same time...
It's like trying to figure out the matrix lol.

[wrveres]

Even Jon Stewart (whom I usually consider to be pretty good for putting things into perspective) talked about this and didn't mention the 1.2 trillion number.

This,

could be the funniest thing I have read all year.

[zepfan]

Let me guess, you prefer Bill O'Reilly?