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When U.S. presidential candidate Ted Cruz withdrew from a fundraiser in Texas, his wife Heidi stepped in to charm donors. A major backer uses her whenever she needs to close a deal. Another is planning a women's only event featuring Mrs. Cruz. Heidi Cruz, a Harvard Business School graduate and former Bush administration official, has emerged as a central figure in her husband's campaign, charming on-the-fence donors while acting as a bridge to the Republican establishment. The effort to broaden Ted Cruz's appeal is crucial as he soars in the polls. He has long had a strong base of support...

Just announced live on Australian TV.

Mike BirdSeptember 11, 2015Oil prices have been on a roller-coaster ride over the past year. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) oil tumbled late in 2014 from over $100 (£64.78) a barrel to just around $45 a barrel early this year. After a recovery back to around $60 a barrel during the early summer, prices have gone through the floor again, down to $45.12 on Friday. But oil could go even lower.The price of a barrel of oil could go to just $20 soon, according to Goldman Sachs analysts led by global commodities research chief Jeffrey Currie. There's a huge surplus of...

The world is worried about China's economy. Mark Schwartz, Goldman Sachs' man in Beijing, not so much. Yes, China's stock market has tumbled 40% since June. And yes, the country has hit a rough patch. "A few things have gone wrong this summer," said Schwartz. But he also thinks the doomsday scenarios are way off the mark. "I think the market reaction globally is overdone," said Schwartz, who is chairman of Goldman Sachs in Asia-Pacific. "I think China is going through a very normal transition, from a state-controlled, state-dominated system, to a more market-oriented system."

David Scutt, Business Insider Australia August 26, 2015 The outlook for Chinese economic growth is not as bad as some commentators are suggesting, and while it is uncertain, it is certainly not collapsing. The view presented by Goldman Sachs' portfolio strategy research team, in a note released earlier this week, suggests that Chinese economic growth will recover in the final quarter of this year on the back of flexibility with fiscal, monetary, and reform policy. Here's Goldman on the recent slowdown in China's growth momentum: China growth has slowed meaningfully in recent months, as evidenced by the disappointing official data,...

Bexar County Republicans who support U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz for president turned out in force Tuesday to hear his wife, Heidi, plead for financial support in a race she described as winnable. The crowd of more than 200 loyalists at Bexar GOP headquarters was already on the Cruz bandwagon in terms of policy. They applauded Heidi Cruz’s denunciations of President Barack Obama’s executive orders, the Affordable Care Act he championed, Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton, the Iran nuclear deal, gay marriage and Planned Parenthood. So the candidate’s wife — whose professional financial savvy has made her an integral part of...

As the 2016 presidential primary approaches, another candidate’s campaign is making a stop in York County. Heidi Cruz, wife of Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, will be speaking at the Clover-Lake Wylie Republican Women on Monday, Aug. 17. Supporters of the Texas conservative can have coffee with the candidate’s wife at 11 a.m. the River Hills Marina Club at River Hills Plantation. The event is free and open to the public, both men and women. The senator’s spouse has a long public career of her own. Mrs. Cruz worked as a policy aide on George W. Bush's 2000 presidential campaign, then...

Taxpayers should not have to pay for private political events such as the one attended by Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on Tuesday outside Aspen, the sheriffs of Pitkin and Garfield counties said. “It’s uncalled for,” said Garfield County Sheriff Lou Vallario. “It’s abuse. It’s that political class attitude that thinks they’re entitled to consume public resources. It’s been a part of their life for so long.” Pitkin County Sheriff Joe DiSalvo agreed, saying that he’d be happy to provide security to public events. But private fundraisers, such as the one Clinton attended Tuesday that cost $2,700 a head to...

Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Sen. Ted Cruz are millionaires. Their Republican primary opponent Scott Walker, the governor of Wisconsin, may be in debt. The disparity in wealth in the Republican presidential primary was on display Monday, as the Federal Election Commission released personal financial disclosures filed by three of the GOP presidential contenders. The candidates are required to report details about their finances in order to qualify for the first 2016 primary debate, which will be hosted by Fox News in Cleveland on Thursday. Cruz, who has spent most of his life working in government, listed at least $2.1...

SCENE LAST NIGHT: Less than a mile or so from Chabad Lubavitch's HQ at 770 Eastern Parkway, around 80 Hillary for America supporters gathered at the home of former White House Jewish Liaison Jarrod Bernstein and Hildy Kuryk, currently communications director at Vogue, to hear from the Clinton campaign's senior advisors including manager Robby Mook, vice chairwoman Huma Abedin and finance director Dennis Chang. SPOTTED: Recent Chairman of the Conference of Presidents Bob Sugarman, Obama mega-bundler Sarah Kovner, Tusk Ventures' Seth London, Anya Hoerburger of Intermedia Partners, Samantha Maltzman, Jill Strauss, Samantha Vinograd of Goldman Sachs and formerly at office...

Goldman Sachs helped the Greek government to mask the true extent of its deficit with the help of a derivatives deal that legally circumvented the EU Maastricht deficit rules. At some point the so-called cross currency swaps will mature, and swell the country's already bloated deficit. Greeks aren't very welcome in the Rue Alphones Weicker in Luxembourg. It's home to Eurostat, the European Union's statistical office. The number crunchers there are deeply annoyed with Athens. Investigative reports state that important data "cannot be confirmed" or has been requested but "not received." Creative accounting took priority when it came to totting...

Reacting to the disclosure that Hillary Clinton exclusively used a private email account during her tenure as secretary of state, a federal judge agreed Friday to reopen a conservative group's Freedom of Information Act lawsuit seeking details about the employment arrangements of top Clinton aide Huma Abedin. However, U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan declined — for now — to address claims from Judicial Watch that Clinton's use of the private account and server led State Department officials to commit a fraud on the court by certifying they had turned over all responsive records.

Republican presidential candidates are increasingly adopting anti-Wall Street rhetoric, as they assail Democrats’ tactics to rein in big banks and appeal to voters’ distrust of the financial sector. In recent weeks, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry declared he is "fed up" with Wall Street's antics, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) slammed Goldman Sachs and Ohio Gov. John Kasich derided the banking industry as rife with greed. The fiery language comes as the landmark 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law nears its fifth anniversary next month. The Democrat-backed statute, Congress’s response to the 2008 economic crisis, put into place hundreds of new regulations,...

Senator Cruz entirely understands the widespread suspicion of the President. Nobody has been more vocal in pointing out the President’s lawlessness or more passionate about fighting his usurpation of congressional authority. Senator Cruz would not and will not give President Obama one more inch of unrestricted power. There have been a lot of questions and concerns about the ongoing Pacific trade negotiations. Many of those concerns, fueled by the media, stem from confusion about Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) and the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Let’s unpack the issues one by one. What are TPA and TPP? TPA stands for Trade...

TPA, or similar a law, has existed for decades. The recent vote in the U.S. Senate was a renewal of the TPA, and Senator Ted Cruz, perhaps the foremost constitutional conservative in the Senate, supported it because it created a process in which the president could be held accountable. TPP was never voted on in the Senate or the House, and its language has not even been finalized. My objection, at this point, to the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) is that it is secret, and only members of congress are permitted to read it. Ted Cruz has read it, and...

http://www.investmentnews.com/article/20150324/FREE/150329968/cruz-avoids-mentioning-his-wifes-goldman-sachs-job

One of the largest companies to manufacture solar panels in the United States uses a surprising resource to keep costs low and compete against producers from China: prison labor. Suniva Inc, a Georgia-based solar cell and panel maker that is backed by Goldman Sachs Group Inc, farms out a small portion of its manufacturing to federal inmates as part of a longstanding government program intended to prepare them for life after prison. Suniva does not actively publicize its work with the prisons, saying it prefers to talk about its in-house factories in Georgia and Michigan, which handle most of its...

It took just a few days after the stunning defeat of Obama's attempt to fast-track the Trans Pacific Partnership bill in the Senate at the hands of his own Democratic party, before everything returned back to normal and the TPP fast-track was promptly passed. Why? The simple answer: money. Or rather, even more money. Because while the actual contents of the TPP may be highly confidential, and their public dissemination may lead to prison time for the "perpetrator" of such illegal transparency .... fast-tracking the TPP, meaning its passage through Congress without having its contents available for debate or amendments,...

The world is sinking under too much debt and an ageing global population means countries' debt piles are in danger of growing out of control, the European chief executive of Goldman Sachs Asset Management has warned. Andrew Wilson, head of Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), said growing debt piles around the world posed one of the biggest threats to the global economy.

Could oil prices be in for yet another decline? Oil prices have rebounded with surprising speed in recent weeks, with WTI prices bouncing by more than a third from March lows. There are good reasons for this. Rig counts are down by nearly 1,000 (or nearly 60 percent) since hitting a high in October 2014. Spending on some of the world’s largest projects has been cut by a combined $129 billion, a figure that could balloon to $200 billion by 2016. The spending and drilling contraction is finally leading to some small production declines.