Goldman Sachs: Summary (Goldman Gave Dems 75% Of Its Campaign Donations In The 2008 Election Cycle

OpenSecrets.org ^ | 3/21/2010 | Staff

[Laissez-faire capitalist]

Goldman Sachs, one of Wall Street's most prestigious investment banks was also among the many banks in 2008 and 2009 to receive billions of dollars in taxpayer money to help it stay afloat...

The firm tends to give most of its money to Democrats...

Cycle 2008 Total: $5,934,089. Democrats: $4,463,788 (75%). Republicans: $1,459,961 (25%)

Total contributions 1990-2010: Democrats 64%, Republicans 35%.

[Laissez-faire capitalist]

***President Obama received nearly $1,000,000 in contributions from Goldman Sachs in the 2008 election cycle - a new record for a candidate from executives and employees of one company.

I did a thread [link below] that came from OpenMarket.org, where they posted an article written by John Berlau of the Competitive Enterprise Institute. In this article, Berlau wrote how under Dodd's bill, that the "resolution authority" would be a permenant bailout fund that would operate as follows:

Financial institutions would be required to contribute to this resolution fund of $50 billion dollars that could be tapped by creditors of large failing firms. President Obama & Chris Dodd are pushing a bill that would give creditors of Goldman Sachs, or other large firms, a better deal than they would get in bankruptcy.

During the financial implosion of 2008, Goldman Sachs was not bailed out directly by taxpayers, but instead received tax dollars as a creditor of AIG. Goldman received $12.9 billion in the "backdoor bailout" because of the credit default swaps it owned that AIG insured. Goldman and other of AIG's counterparties were paid by the government 100 cents on the dollar in this bailout, wheras creditors in bankruptcy court often get less than 50 cents on the dollar.

Under Dodd's bill, when the government takes over a failing firm, the management lose their jobs and the shareholders get nothing.

But what is more, under Dodd's bill, creditors of large firms will get a better deal than they will with the failure of a small firm. The resolution fund will not be accessible to small firms, but only by large firms (like Goldman if it fails). The small firms go to banruptcy, where they will be lucky if they get 50 cents on the dollar.

The fees for Dodd's resolution fund to pay off creditors of large failing firms would come not only from financial institutions but from a broad array of Main Street businesses. Stable life, auto and home insurance companies would have to pay into this fund to pay off the creditors of the next high-rolling large firm, and the fees that they pay would be passed on in premiums that their policy holders would pay.

It may be that Dodd's bill (were it to pass) would lead to creditors dumping the small firms and flocking to large firms, thus leading possibly to more small firms failing. Dodd's bill also greatly increases the powers of the Federal Reserve like never before.

[Laissez-faire capitalist]

Obama-Dodd Financial Bill Would Further Enrich Goldman Sachs

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2495783/posts

[2001convSVT]

“Goldman Gave Dems 75% Of Its Campaign Donations In The 2008 Election Cycle

If you lie down with dogs don't be surprised if you get up with fleas.

[ripley]

If this were a Republican administration, it would be front-page news for about seventy-three years.

IMHO

[Presbyterian Reporter]

Obama’s standard operating practice is to first demonize someone or some entity and then use that as an excuse to impose draconian new legislation.

Thus Obama’s indictment of Goldman Sachs is right out of the Hitler playbook of burning down the Reichstag.

Fascists, whether Nazi or Islamo, act the same.

[FormerACLUmember]

Goldman Sachs is a democrat party criminal entity and should be anihilated, imho.

[huldah1776]

This is strange for me. Goldman-S and a lot of heavy financial Dems are Jewish. Why are they supporting an anti-Jewish government? Why are they setting themselves up for another holocaust? They are trying to cover their tracks with blaming Bush through their media, but with the growth of the Jewish-hate groups they are trying to control, I really see this as a BIG mistake. Am I wrong in this?

[WOBBLY BOB]

9/22/2008

the ‘money quote’:

“Let’s start with the numbers. Why is a first term Senator pulling down almost $300,000 a year from Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG, Countrywide Financial, and Washington Mutual? He has not even completed his fourth year in the Senate and received a total of $1,093,329.00 from these eight companies and their employees. (all data from OpenSecrets.org). John McCain’s numbers, according to OpenSecrets.org for the period 1990-2008 (i.e., 18 years worth of data) only collected $549,584.00. In other words, Barack is receiving $273,582.25 (and 2008 is not over) per year while McCain raised a paltry $30,532.44.

Want another shocker? Barack Obama has received more from one source–Goldman Sachs $542,252.00–than McCain has from all of the companies combined. Who the hell is more beholden to lobbyists? And why does a junior Senator from Illinois rate this kind of dough?”

http://noquarterusa.net/blog/2008/09/21/baracks-wall-street-problem-is-now-americas/#more-4939

[TopQuark]

"During the financial implosion of 2008, Goldman Sachs was not bailed out directly by taxpayers, but instead received tax dollars as a creditor of AIG. Goldman received $12.9 billion in the "backdoor bailout" because of the credit default swaps it owned that AIG insured. Goldman and other of AIG's counterparties were paid by the government 100 cents on the dollar in this bailout, wheras creditors in bankruptcy court often get less than 50 cents on the dollar. "

This garbage is just commie propaganda. And FR is full of it.

[CitizenUSA]

Conservatives are sick and tired of wealth redistribution schemes. That should include corporate welfare. We either stop this special interest squabbling over federal largess, or it will literally destroy this nation. A business that uses government to punish its competitors and gain federal handouts is as much an enemy of liberty as a welfare mom. I swear our government is like a bunch of children fighting over pinata candy. It’s time for grownups to step in and put a stop to this!

[DrC]

“Who the hell is more beholden to lobbyists?”

Well, if you were relying on Paul Krugman to tell you, you would conclude “Republicans.”

“The main moral you should draw from the charges against Goldman, though, doesn’t involve the fine print of reform; it involves the urgent need to change Wall Street. Listening to financial-industry lobbyists and the Republican politicians who have been huddling with them”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/19/opinion/19krugman.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Apparently, Dems have successfully used an “invisibility cloak” to shield their huddles with GS from Mr. Krugman’s gaze.

[Liz]

The Dodd Financial Bill is AKA “The Obama/Rahm/Goldman Sachs Preservation Act of 2010”

Greece paid Goldman Sachs $300 million in fees for arranging the toxic 2001 transactions, according to several bankers familiar with the deal. Goldman is rotten to the core. And they own the Obama administration. Here's how the G/S Wall Street predators operate.

COMING TO A TOWN NEAR YOU Mother Jones magazine circa Feb 2007 reported on the activities of Mark Florian, Chief Operating Officer of Goldman Sachs' municipal finance division.

According to the report, Florian was traveling to statehouses across the US to convince state officials that selling state assets would be "mutually beneficial." One of the scams involved selling state roads then monetizing them via bonding----which would make billions for G/S til the end of time.

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REFERENCE Goldman Sachs opened an office in Princeton NJ 2006 when Corzine was elected (the better to loot the NJ Treasury).

Goldman Sachs Hedge Fund Partners
701 Mount Lucas Rd
Princeton, NJ 08540-1911

G/S Hedge Fund Partners advertises it seeks investments in traditional infrastructure sectors including transport infrastructure such as "monetizing" toll roads, airports and ports as well as regulated gas, water and electrical utilities.

Then-Gov Corzine (ex-Goldman head) stationed Goldman Sachs functionaries in state government as the issue of road monetization surfaced. Corzine hired four of his G/S buddies including G/S alumnus Bradley Abelow as state Treasurer. Corzine took a road show across the state to sell the monetization deal. However, monetizing NJ roads hit a large pothole and collapsed like a flat tire---b/c taxpayers were onto the G/S scam.

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CIRCA Sept 15, 2009 A SHOCKING DISPLAY OF OBAMA'S THIRST FOR POWER FOX News' Judge Napolitano notes: if implemented, the unconstitutional proposals Obama urged in his Sept 2009 speech to Wall Street will amount to a final coup d’état by banksters, their technocrats and enforcers, at the Federal Reserve (*the privately-held bankster cartel that masquerades as a government agency).

Obama's "reforms" would install a dictatorial regulatory power controlled by international bankers oer the entire US economy — down to the local grocer and hot dog vendor on the corner. It will control our lives down to the smallest detail. It will require us to ask permission for the most mundane and routine of financial transactions. IT MUST BE BE RESISTED AT ALL COSTS.

VIDEO LINK AVAILABLE Judge Andrew Napolitano On Obama/Bankster Takeover

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

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/

THINGS WE DO NOT KNOW ABOUT RAHM Did Wall Street Rahm reveal all of his ties to financial institutions involved in Obama's trillion dollar federal bailout of financials.......like Goldman Sachs, for instance?

[Liz]

FOR YOUR REFERENCE Jefferson County, Alabama, decided to build an elaborate new sewer system with the help of out-of-state financial wizards with names like Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase. The result was a monstrous pile of borrowed money that the county used to build, in essence, the world's grandest toilet — "the Taj Mahal of sewer-treatment plants" is how one county worker put it.

Now Jefferson County is one of the most indebted municipal governments in US history, with a current debt of approximately $7,000 for each man, woman and child residing in the county. Two extremely controversial undertakings by the county account for the majority of this debt.

First was a massive overhaul of the county-owned sewer system, and second was a series of risky bond-swap agreements. Both have been scrutinized by federal prosecutors, with several former county officials convicted of bribery and corruption. In 1995, Jefferson County entered into a consent decree with the EPA regarding sewer overflows into the Cahaba River watershed.

A total of $3.2 billion of new construction was subsequently contracted, both to comply with the consent decree and to expand the system to newly-developing areas and increase the number of ratepayers financing the construction. Much of this work was awarded to inexperienced companies, many of which have since been convicted of bribery, along with several county officials.

A series of controversial interest rate swaps, initiated in 2002 and 2003 by former Commission President Larry Langford (removed as the mayor of Birmingham after his conviction, were intended to lower interest payments, but have, in fact, had the opposite effect, increasing the county's indebtedness to the point that officials have issued formal statements doubting the county's ability to meet its financial obligations. The bond swaps are at the center of an investigation by the SEC.

In late Feb 2008 Standard & Poor’s lowered the rating of Jefferson County bonds to “junk” status. In early March 2008, Moody's followed suit and indicated that it would also review the county's ability to meet other bond obligations. On March 7, 2008, Jefferson County failed to post $184 million collateral as required under its sewer bond agreements, thereby moving into technical default.......it is likely the county would enter into bankruptcy, which would result in one of the larger municipal bankruptcies in American history.”

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FOR YOUR REFERENCE Florida stands to lose $1 billion from Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy. In Florida, Lehman Brothers managed public assets, sold securities, underwrote bond deals and handled residential and commercial mortgages. >>>>>>Local governments are stuck with about $556 million in tainted securities that they can't redeem. >>>>>>Fla has $290 million less to pay for everything from hurricane claims to health care, community colleges and care for infants with disabilities. >>>>>>> Counties, cities and school districts face a loss of more than $300 million for roads, sewers and schools.

[Maelstorm]

Should be a headline on every conservative news source but it isn’t Republicans legthe Dems make the outrageous claim that they are on the high ground where Wallstreet is concerned. We need a simple campaign commercial on this run in every competitive district.

[Liz]

Obama's Gangster Government MO is to publicly demonize an entity they are privately in bed with----then use that as an excuse to impose draconian new legislation. Thus, Obama’s indictment of Dems' financier Goldman Sachs is right out of the Hitler playbook of burning down the Reichstag.

Anything and everything Obama does is a strategic move to increase his power over the people through the executive branch.....

Ohaha signed an Executive Order establishing a Council of Governors to "strengthen" the partnership between the Federal and State Governments to protect our Nation against all types of hazards. The Council will be reviewing matters involving state National Guards; homeland defense; civil support; synchronization and integration of State and Federal military activities; and other matters of mutual interest pertaining to National Guard, homeland defense, and civil support activities. (emphasis added)

=================================

FOR YOUR REFERENCE The phrase "to gain executive branch authority" was first heard 70 years ago, or so.....part of a package called "The Enabling Acts"......although it was written in German. The Enabling Acts granted "the executive" the authority to write new laws and change old laws without oversight.

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OBAMA'S DEFINITION OF REDISTRIBUTING THE WEALTH: Goldman Sachs receives billions of dollars in taxpayer money...........and gives most of it to Democrat candidates.

[Laissez-faire capitalist]

Since you provided no objective, veifiable to back up your assertions, what you said is propaganda and perhaps commie propaganda at that.

You must provide some evidence to back up your assertions. Ad Hominem attacks will never suffice.

Yeah, this man from the CEI is a freal commie alright. The CEI is known for their commie tendencies. LOL.

[Fee]

This shows that the GOP is A__holes. For decades Wall Street of New York City donated heavily to Dems and liberal social causes. Dems go after traditional GOP supported industries with regs and taxes while the GOP wants to let Wall Street do what ever it wants. Well Wall Street took care of America on September 2008 that would make Bin Laden proud. Now the GOP wants to defend Wall Street against the Dem/Obama attacks and punishment “reform” bill. Since Wall Street has always hurt the GOP and the GOP consituents, why risk losing the independent voters by defending Wall Street. Wall Street and the Dems deserve each other, thus we (GOP) and conservatives should set aside and let them kill each other financially and politically. It means one less powerful donor for the Dems in 2010 and 2012. If the GOP retakes power in 2010/2012, let the former Wall Street Dem lovers pay the GOP to undo the Obama reforms.

[TopQuark]

"You must provide some evidence to back up your assertions."

You are more thoroughly confused than I originally thought. YOU have made the assertions, and the burden is therefore on you to back them up.

[TopQuark]

"Yeah, this man from the CEI is a freal commie alright. The CEI is known for their commie tendencies. LOL."

You once again take sides rather than address the issue. The statement you provided is garbage --- pure anti-capitalist garbage, whatever the source.

Suppose you and I have a contract whereby you are supposed to pay up $1000. You have misused the money, or may be simply down on your luck, and you don't have the money to pay. Your uncle bails you out, and you return $1000 of MY MONEY. Only an insane person would suggest that I was bailed out by your uncle.

Your role in the above story is played by AID, mine by GS, and uncle's by Uncle Sam.

[AuntB]

“John McCain’s numbers, according to OpenSecrets.org for the period 1990-2008 (i.e., 18 years worth of data) only collected $549,584.00.”

He got $230,000 of it in 2008 alone. For the money given republicans, he got the most that should tell us something about him. This is probably the reason why:

Goldman Sachs, Charged with Fraud, Is also an H-1B Employer
By David North, April 19, 2010 Center for Immigration studies

http://www.cis.org/north/goldman-sachs

This table lists the top donors to this candidate in the 2008 election cycle.

John McCain
Merrill Lynch $373,595
Citigroup Inc $322,051
Morgan Stanley $273,452
Goldman Sachs $230,095 [snip]
Greenberg Traurig LLP $146,437 (Abramoff)[snip]
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?cycle=2008&cid=n00006424