Posted on 05/30/2006 11:20:11 AM PDT by boryeulb
The Senate should reject President Bush’s nomination of Goldman Sachs CEO Hank Paulson for Treasury secretary. Under Paulson’s leadership, Goldman Sachs participated in ethically, and perhaps legally, questionable business practices. Paulson also supports the economy-killing Kyoto Protocol and has demonstrated little respect for private property rights.
On the ethical front, Paulson has refused to answer questions about his apparent use of Goldman Sachs’ corporate assets to advance his personal interests. In 2002, Paulson used at least $35 million of shareholder money to help environmental groups stop a “sustainable forestry” project in Tierra del Fuego, Chile. Environmental groups had delayed the project for years—to the point where financial stress on the project developer became acute and forced the sale of the land. Goldman swept in and bought the land, promptly turning it over to Paulson’s environmental allies.
The environmental groups involved in the transaction included The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), the actual recipient of the land donation from Goldman Sachs. At the time of the transaction, Paulson was a member of the board of directors of TNC—after the transaction he was elevated to chairman. Paulson’s son is now listed on tax returns as a “trustee” of WCS’.
When I confronted Paulson with these accusations at the March 31, 2006, annual shareholder meeting, Paulson and Goldman Sachs attempted to deny the involvement of TNC in the “land steal.” At a very minimum, however, tax records indicate that Goldman Sachs paid TNC more than $144,000 in consulting fees related to the transaction. Moreover, the TNC acknowledges the WCS as one of its “organizational partners.”
On the legal front, the Washington Post reported just last week that Goldman Sachs participated in transactions with scandal-ridden Fannie Mae that “that improperly pushed $107 million of Fannie Mae earnings into future years. The aim, [said federal regulators], was always the same: To shape the company’s books, not in response to accepted accounting rules but in a way that made it appear that the company had reached earnings targets, thus triggering the maximum possible payout for executives…”
Aside from the potential ethical and legal issues surrounding Paulson, he has decidedly anti-economy and anti-property rights leanings.
Paulson supports economy-killing global warming regulation. Paulson transplanted TNC’s pro-Kyoto position into Goldman Sachs, an investment bank with no known expertise in climate science. Now Goldman Sachs not only supports greenhouse gas regulation, but has said it will lobby for such policies. No doubt this will be much easier, with Paulson as Treasury secretary.
Private property owners should also be unhappy with Paulson’s nomination. Paulson’s TNC is the world’s richest environmental group with $3 billion in assets and is a major opponent of private property rights.
A series of Washington Post articles in May 2003 exposed the Nature Conservancy as more than just a “land bank.” In the past it has also acted as a broker of too-sweet-to-be-true land and business deals for wealthy insiders and corporate supporters, often at taxpayer expense.
In one scheme reported by the Post, “…the Conservancy bought raw land, attached development restrictions and then resold the land to state trustees and other supporters at greatly reduced prices. Buyers then voluntarily gave the Conservancy charitable contributions roughly equivalent to the discounts, sums that were written off from the buyers’ federal income taxes. The deals generally allowed the buyers to build homes on the land.”
As Treasury secretary, Paulson will be in charge of the Internal Revenue Service. Should he be in charge of the government organization that has oversight over any tax problems that TNC might have?
With a Republican administration and Republican-controlled Congress in trouble for abandoning conservative principles and a scandal-ridden Washington, Hank Paulson as Treasury secretary is the wrong choice at the wrong time. Since the politically tone-deaf President Bush is unlikely to withdraw Paulson from consideration, it will be up to the Senate to do the right thing.
Mr. Milloy is executive director of the Free Enterprise Education Institute. He publishes JunkScience.com and CSRWatch.com. He is a junk science expert, an advocate of free enterprise and an adjunct scholar at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
Republican nominee too favorable to environmental interests. Somehow I don't think this story will be going mainstream.
Jorge wants a Kyoto liberal in his administration?
Just another shill of the Rockefeller/Morgan CFR - Trilat seed-bed of future Presidents AND their cabinets, who've placed every president and cabinet member since WWII with the exception of RWR.
That W appointed a Corzine clone is pathetic and telling at once.
The very second we heard the words ''Goldman Sachs'', the ONLY reasonable response to this nomination became ''no effing way''.
Bring back Alexander Hamilton...
This guy is an enviro wacko? I'd like to see evidence of that; investment guys aren't typically known to take the leftist position on these matters.
The minute we hear "Bank of New York...."
remember - Goldman Sachs produced the likes of John Corzine.
As soon as I heard the new nominee was from Goldman, I knew there was going to be trouble.
Goldman Sachs is a respected investment firm; every company has their bad eggs. I just hope this guy isn't one of them.
And I'd like to see a few links in this article (there isn't one) to back up the reporter's claims.
Golly, I thought (or hoped) the one thing we could count on our beloved President to do was to nominate ethical people.</semi-sarcasm>
Goldman Sachs? Respected? If you say so. Not by anyone who's taken one of their frequent hosings. Corzine wasn't a one-off, either; GS' long-term record of (putting it charitably) less-than-scrupulously-ethical dealings would put a blush to anyone's cheek. Possibly excepting Milken.
Paulson is also Chairman of the Nature Conservancy, an environmental activist group that endorses the Kyoto Treaty that would require the U.S. to make economically-drastic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions to combat the scientifically-unproven global warming threat.
As head of the Nature Conservancy, Paulson often made decisions that benefited the Conservancy at the expense of Goldman and its shareholders,” said John Carlisle, policy director at the National Legal and Policy Center. “Based on his private sector record, Paulson simply can’t be trusted as Treasury Secretary to faithfully adhere to important Administration policies on Kyoto and the environment.”
“The Goldman board failed to respond to questions about the apparent conflict-of-interest between Paulson’s environmental agenda and his management of the company,” noted Tom Borelli of the Free Enterprise Action Fund. “You do not want someone serving as a cabinet officer who has a habit of indulging his environmental hobby at the expense of his financial responsibilities.”
“President Bush took the right step in not committing the United States to a treaty that would likely cost millions of American jobs to address an unproven global warming threat,” said Steve Milloy of the Free Enterprise Action Fund. “Henry Paulson would undermine the Administration’s ability to counter global warming alarmism.”
If the president thinks another Goldman liberal will bring in the base in the next election, he is being very, very badly advised.
What's happened since the early and mid-90's? When I worked with them, they had an excellent reputation.
Do a search on Paulson at the The Nature Conservancy
Henry M. Paulson, Jr. Elected Chairman of The Nature Conservancy Board of Governors, Jan. 20, 2004
The Nature Conservancy's Board of Governors today announced that Henry M. "Hank" Paulson Jr., chairman and CEO of The Goldman Sachs Group Inc., has been unanimously elected as the new chairman of the organization's national Board of Governors. Paulson currently serves as a member of the Board and as co-chair of the Conservancy's Asia Pacific Council.
"Conserving the diversity of plant and animal life on Earth is a mission of vital importance, and something I care deeply about," said Paulson. "I was drawn to The Nature Conservancy both because of its mission and because of its pragmatic, inclusive approach. An approach that, in my opinion, has produced an impressive record of achievements."
You and me both!
These are some of the same a@@holes who foisted the unconstitutional Fed upon us. Originally Congress' job that is no longer controlled by anyone but the president's right to appoint the chief. And whose shareholders include foreign banking elites.
Check these excellent links out - you may find them informative, i.e. stuff they decided we didn't need to know in public school, and still do as they sing FDR's & union praises.
How Progressives Rewrote the Constitution
http://www.cato.org/realaudio/cbf-02-15-06.ram
Secrets of the Federal Reserve
http://www.barefootsworld.net/fs_m_ch_01.html
Size Matters: How Big Government Puts the Squeeze on America's Families, Finances, and Freedom (And Limits the Pursuit of Happiness)
http://www.cato.org/realaudio/cbf-02-02-06.ram
The Founding of The Federal Reserve (video)
http://mises.org:88/Rothbard-Fed
The Issue of Tariffs: How U.S. Revenue Collection Was Turned Inside-Out (video)
http://mises.org:88/Sophocleus
The Great Depression, World War II, and American Prosperity, Part I (video)
http://www.mises.org/multimedia/video/Woods/Woods5.wmv
Big Business and the Rise of American Statism
http://praxeology.net/RC-BRS.htm
the inner circle at Goldman is alot tighter then the USMC.
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