Monday, November 19, 2007

The Bloodless Coup Continues-2

"Rarely on Wall Street, where money travels in herds, has one firm gotten it so right when nearly everyone else was getting it so wrong. ... Goldman's good fortune cannot be explained by luck alone. ... When the credit markets seized up in late July, Goldman was in the enviable position of having offloaded the toxic products that Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, UBS, Bear Stearns and Morgan Stanley, among others, had kept buying. ... For all its success on Wall Street, it is Goldman's global reach and political heft that inspire a mix of envy and admiration. ... All of which has made Goldman a favorite of conspiracy theorists, columnists and bloggers who see the firm as a Wall Street version of the Trilateral Commission. ... One particular obsession is President Bush's working group on the markets, an informal committee led by Mr. Paulson that includes Ben S. Bernanke, ... Christopher Cox, ... and Walter Lukken, the acting chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The group meets about once a quarter--privately, with no minutes taken--to ensure thay government agencies are briefed on market conditions and issues. ... It also recently completed a study recommending that hedge funds not be subject to further regulation; the group's fund committee was led by Eric Mindlich, a former Goldman trader who now runs a sucessful hedge fund", by Jerry Anderson and Landon Thomas, at the NYT, 19 November.

"It's not even 2008 yet and already this presidential campaign has been going on too long. ... So, in utter frustration, I would make the following modest proposal: Just call off the election and let Goldman Sachs take over. After, all it seems to run just about everything already", Randall Forsyth (RF) in "The Goldy Standard", at Barron's, 19 November.

Count me a member of the "Black Helicopter" crowd. Guilty as charged. I agree, "Goldman's good fortune cannot be explained by luck alone". Amazing, a hedge fund manager does not want further regulation. What did Helicopter Ben (HB) think Mindlich would say? How do these NYT reporters know what is discussed at HB's quarterly meetings?

Amen Randy. Your "modest proposal" is Swiftian! I have thought these things for months. RF is closer to the mark than he thinks in titling his piece, "The Goldy Standard". I first wrote of the Bloodless Coup on 13 November also see my 15 November, "Dr. Doom Returns".

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