Timothy P. Carney: Beware the Goldman Sachs Populist

"If these folks want a fight," President Obama said Thursday, tossing a rhetorical barb at Wall Street, "it's a fight I'm ready to have."

To begin with the substance of his proposed regulations: Right now, all we have is a vague first draft. We know they will be fleshed out, rewritten, amended, tweaked, ping-ponged, and massaged.

All along, we know Wall Street lobbyists will be at the table. The Wall Street "fat cats," as Obama calls them, probably aren't really looking for a fight as much as a seat at the table -- and the numbers suggest they've earned that seat.

For his presidential campaign in which Wall Street regulation was a mantra, Obama's top source of funds was investment bank giant Goldman Sachs, whose employees, partners, and executives gave him $995,000 -- that's the most any politician has raised from any one company in a single election since the age of "soft money" ended.

Obama is touting his proposed bank tax and financial regulations as a test of "whose side" politicians are on -- the bankers' or the people's. But check the numbers at OpenSecrets.org, and you get an interesting clue as to whose side Wall Street on.

The "securities and investment" industry has favored Democrats by more than a two-to-one margin so far this cycle. The top eight recipients of Wall Street PAC money this election are all Democrats.

The Wall Street flood of cash to Democrats is not simply about buttering up those in power -- a closer look at the cash looks like Wall Street wants Democrats to win. The top recipient of Wall Street PAC money is Rep. Paul Kanjorski, D-Pa., distinguished mostly by his being a very vulnerable incumbent.

Vulnerable Democratic Sens. Chris Dodd (since dropped out), Blanche Lincoln, and Harry Reid are all in the top seven.

And 10 days ago, once it was clear Martha Coakley's campaign was in trouble, Citigroup's PAC cut a $2,400 check, while many lobbyists representing Goldman, Citi, and Morgan Stanley shelled out for her Capitol Hill wine-bar fundraiser.

Those Wall Street lobbyists Obama likes to badmouth -- they're his friends, too. The lead Wall Street lobbyist is Thomas Nides, chairman of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association.

Nides is an old Democratic hand. During the Clinton administration, Nides was vice president for human resources at Fannie Mae, which was basically a taxpayer-underwritten money-laundering operation enriching well-connected Democrats.

Nides gave the maximum to Obama in late 2007 even before Obama was the Iowa front-runner, and then he gave Obama the maximum again for the general election. He also donated to the campaigns of Joe Biden and Rahm Emanuel, now the vice president and White House chief of staff. All in all, he's given more than $70,000 to Democrats and none to Republicans.

Bank of America's K Street lobbyists include Obama administration alumnus Oscar Ramirez and Chuck Schumer's former press secretary Izzy Klein, both at the Podesta Group, co-founded by John Podesta, who served as Obama's transition director, and has visited the White House more than 15 times.

Obama's record as a bailout booster also makes it tough to buy his current schtick as anti-Wall Street crusader.

Remember, Obama, as the presidential nominee and head of the party controlling Congress, could have blocked Bush's bailout in late 2008. Instead, he rallied behind it, and rewarded its architects -- Timothy Geithner and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke -- by promoting Geithner and renominating Bernanke.

So when Obama, touting his bank tax, says "we want our money back," recall that it was Obama who helped the banks take your money -- without asking you. It's as if a mugger took your wallet and gave it to Goldman Sachs Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein, and then posed as your champion by promising to raise Blankfein's taxes.

But everyone who opposes the bank tax -- which, of course, the banks will just pass it through to customers -- will be tarred by the Democratic machine as siding with Wall Street over Main Street. Same with Obama's proposed financial regulations, even though they would institutionalize bailouts by dubbing Goldman Sachs and its ilk "Tier One Financial Institutions."

The press will follow Obama's rhetoric over the coming months, and paint him as the scourge of Wall Street. It's more illuminating, though, to follow the legislation -- and follow the money.

Timothy P. Carney is The Washington Examiner's lobbying editor. His K Street column appears on Wednesdays.

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/Beware-the-Goldman-Sachs-populist-82293977.html#ixzz0dTnT7gfF

Beware the Goldman Sachs Populist: Republicans, Conservatives, Tea Partiers need to expose President and his men as HYPOCRITES--bashing the banks and Wall Street, even as they rake in the dough.

You got that right.

Nov 21, 2008
Goldman Sachs Will Be Sitting Pretty With Emanuel in the Obama White House
By: Timothy P. Carney, Examiner Columnist

Goldman Sachs always has clout in Washington, as evidenced by the firm’s alumni serving as Treasury secretaries under both Presidents Bush and Clinton. Today, in these tumultuous times of bailouts and meltdowns when the investment banking leviathan needs Washington more than ever before, Goldman can leverage its most valuable asset yet—incoming White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel. Goldman Sachs is the giant of Wall Street, and more than any other investment bank, Goldman is surviving the current financial storm.

Traditionally a Democratic booster, and one of Barack Obama’s top sources of funds in this past election, Goldman has always had some particularly strong allies within government. Emanuel is one such ally. An interesting early chapter in the Goldman-Emanuel relationship took place in the setting of Bill Clinton’s campaign for the White House in 1992. Clinton hired Emanuel as his chief fundraiser.

At the same time, however, Emanuel was on the payroll of Goldman Sachs, receiving $3,000 per month from the firm to “introduce us to people,” in the words of one Goldman partner at the time. This is certainly a noteworthy relationship, but it’s one that has almost entirely escaped scrutiny. (snip)

In his four terms in Congress, Emanuel has raised $74,750 from Goldman, making the firm his number four source of funds. Goldman has helped Emanuel. How has Emanuel helped Goldman? The most obvious answer, as mentioned in this column two weeks ago, is in Emanuel’s lead role in shepherding the “$700 billion” bailout—first proposed by former a Goldman CEO, Bush Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson—through the skeptical House.

Of course, back in the Clinton days, Goldman benefited from NAFTA and the bailout of the Mexican currency, with Emanuel pushing NAFTA through Congress, and Rubin hammering out the peso bailout. Did Goldman improperly funnel money to the Clinton campaign by subsidizing Emanuel’s salary in 1992? Did Goldman’s help to Clinton spur the Democratic president to push NAFTA and the Mexican bailout?

The answers to these questions are opaque, and with Emanuel burrowed deep within the Obama White House, the continued relationship between Goldman Sachs and Obama’s right hand man won’t be easy to follow.

Watch which regulations of Wall Street Obama fights for. Watch where the bailout money goes. And don’t be surprised Goldman soon sitting pretty once again.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/TimothyCarney/

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The biggest threat for 2010-12 elections: Hussein buying stuffed ballot boxes with PORKULUS dollars!.....

ADMIN SLUSH FUNDS TO DATE:

(a) 80% of the trillion dollar stim is unspent and under Obama's control to finance endangered Dems 2010-12.

(b) June 9, 2009 Obama announced, "Several financial institutions are set to pay back $68B to taxpayers." Taxpayers assumed that would be returned to the general funds from whence it had come .......in order to pay down the debt. The truth, however, is that the money returned is finding new life as part of what amounts to a Treasury Dept-controlled slush fund....to finance candidates.

(3)Healthcare---the first four years of ObamaCare is to amass $$billions. Period. Healthcare does not kick in til 2013. Another gimmick pushes much of the legislation’s costs off the federal budget and onto the private sector by requiring individuals and employers to purchase health insurance....or pay a hefty fine or go to jail (only illegals are exempt from this provision).

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WHAT TO LOOK FOR IN YOUR STATE Keep in mind the Chicago mob occupying our WH is draining the US Treasury for themselves. Watch your state for any sudden infusions of "stimulus" that never materializes into tangible job activity.

Be very alarmed if any public official in your state registers one or more corporations in the state of Delaware. DEL is the number one state for financial secrecy (VP Biden was the US Sen from Delaware). Better yet---DEMAND your public officials reveal their Del corporations.

OBAMA-BIDEN COME TO NJ Obama hid $17.5 billion stim in NJ---investigative news reports say it simply disappeared---no jobs were created. Obama and Delaware Joe Biden visited New Jersey several times, ostensibly to campaign for Corzine. Democrat Corzine---former G/S head--registered three Delaware corporations before taking office.

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