He would have put those in if his money were at stake.

‘connected’ trumps ’smartest’

–Hank Paulson, Robert Rubin, Secretary of the Treasury; Goldman Sachs, Alan Greenspan, Secretary of the Treasury; Citibank, Bill Clinton, Citibank, Robert Rubin, Secretary Treasury; Citibank, Barack Obama, Robert Rubin

Hoping for Barack -but you better be watching Robert Rubin behind the scenes.

Our work has just begun.

http://epicureandealmaker.blogspot.com/2008/10/ring-ring-its-cluephone-for-you.html

Ask yourself this: Did Hank Paulson know how Goldman made money?
ANY answer is disturbing.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mirabile_dictu

An interesting phrase.

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Link

Goldman is the firm that other Wall Street firms love to hate. It houses some of the world’s biggest private equity and hedge funds. Its investment bankers are the smartest. Its traders, the best. They make the most money on Wall Street, earning the firm the nickname Goldmine Sachs. (Its 30,522 employees earned an average of _$600,000 last year_ — an average that considers secretaries as well as traders.)
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The very liberal bonuses paid on Wall Street take money away from shareholders. The ability to pay such large such large bonuses indicate that customers of Wall Street firms are paying a very high price for the services rendered them. If there was more competition and therefore lower fees, then the companies would not be able to pay such high bonuses.

‘What! Someone is taking away the trough…er…punchbowl?’ The pigmen asked.

There is nothing new under the sun, said Solomon. Finance does not lend itself to innovation, said Gailbraith. They were both right.

Here is an interesting bit about how the pigmen destroyed Glass-Stegal…and the economy.

‘Wall Street corruption is one of the biggest impediments to an economic recovery. It has become an inefficient obstacle to capital allocation, price discovery, and real economic growth.

The US financial system represents a general systemic risk to the rest of the world because of the manipulation of the US dollar as reserve currency to serve the short term secular interests of a small but powerful financial elite.’

and…

‘The banks must be restrained from distorting the role of money and finance in the national economy to obtain and direct a disproportionate amount of wealth and power. Such unrestrained financial power is a corrosive influence that destroys the fabric of a free and democratic society by distorting the allocation of resources and corrupting the institutions of the press, of education, and of the government.

Does a weakening of banking regulation result in economic Imbalances and asset bubbles? Yes, always and everywhere.’

and…

‘Why Has the U.S. Financial Sector Grown so Much? Thomas Philippon

Human Capital in the U.S. Financial Sector: 1900-2005 Philippon Reshef

“We find a very tight link between deregulation and human capital in the financial sector. Highly skilled labor left the financial industry in the wake of the depression era regulations, and started flowing back precisely when these regulations were removed.”

“We find that in 1920-1940 and in 1990-2005 employees in finance are overpaid.”

Thomas Philippon’

http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/