Oct 14 2009

“It Takes a Pillage…” [updated with links]

( – promoted by buhdydharma )

[New! Improved! Now with actual links to the full article (duh-oh!) ]

So I was reading this article, got pretty upset, and figured y’all should know about it.

Published on Tuesday, October 13, 2009 by The Daily Beast

Paulson’s Revealing Phone Records

While the economy was crashing last year, exclusively analyzed telephone records reveal the ex-Treasury secretary was talking far more to Obama and Geithner than Bush and McCain.

by Nomi Prins

Timothy Geithner’s just-released phone records caused quite a stir last week-specifically, the absurdly small Wall Street circle Obama’s Treasury secretary has consulted during one of the most critical economic periods in U.S. history. Yet as Winston Churchill once said, “The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.” Understanding the situation we’re now facing requires an examination of how things went down among him, former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, and the most influential financial titans on the planet, during the bailout and bank landscape carve-out period.

So, I spent a fair portion of the weekend digging through 415 pages of Paulson’s calendar-which has received almost no scrutiny compared with the Geithner logs-during the seven most critical financial crisis months (March, 2008 and August 2008 through January 2009). August through October 2008 were particularly packed, encompassing 237 pages worth of calls. Categorizing these records by incoming and outgoing, individual and conference, calls per day and month, during that crucial period, I also crosschecked them against Geithner’s calendar.

The information doesn’t come in ready-made easy-to-digest classifications, but combing the logs reveals four interesting facts:…[giant snip]

Continued below.

She continues:

Frankly, this whole group forms a little club….

and:

Whenever you have too much power concentrated in the hands of a few men, things don’t turn out so well for everyone else. That’s strikingly evident….

Well, I don’t really have much to say about this, it just staggers me. Oh of course I suspected it. And I hope more people knowing the specifics is a good thing, so I posted this, as a pointer to Nomi’s specifics.

I will add — her closing line is a kicker, but you really do need to see the rest to appreciate it fully. Links to read full article:

On CommonDreams (left-ish news aggregator)

http://www.commondreams.org/vi…

On The Daily Beast, where it was originally published:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/b…

Nomi Prins is author of It Takes a Pillage: Behind the Bonuses, Bailouts, and Backroom Deals from Washington to Wall Street (Wiley, September, 2009). Before becoming a journalist, she worked on Wall Street as a managing director at Goldman Sachs, and running the international analytics group at Bear Stearns in London

12 comments

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  1. Yes, it’s old. but SO worth reading, and SO applicable.

    Wonderland Wire

    1 June 2009

    Audience Laughs After Geithner Tells China Its Dollar Assets are Safe

    “Chinese assets are very safe,” Geithner said in response to a question after a speech at Peking University, where he studied Chinese as a student in the 1980s.

    His answer drew loud laughter from his student audience, reflecting skepticism in China about the wisdom of a developing country accumulating a vast stockpile of foreign reserves instead of spending the money to raise living standards at home.

    http://wonderlandwire.wordpres…

    Probably should be a separate essay, but there you have it. Audience laughs. In the USA, we believe him and quote him on the nes.

  2. who blew John Kennedy’s brains out.  What you thought it might “change”.

    And when I wrote to media to point out Tiny Tim sitting in front of the Council on Foreign Relations indicating his true allegance the media channel replaced the picture with one not containing the blue Council on Foreign Relations background.

    • Joy B. on October 14, 2009 at 03:16
    • #

    Phone tag. You’re it!!!

    Um… you know there’s a reason for it all, don’t you? ยง;o)

  4. …of info.  She was on Thom Hartmann show today, talking about the bank bailouts really totaling $14 trillion.  I look forward to reading her new book.

    Thanks Al in Sea.

  5. Sounds like a good read.

    • banger on October 14, 2009 at 15:24
    • #

    We know form experience and Naomi Klein that any kind of crises is an opportunity to steal money and suspend the rules. Unfortunately the majority of the American people do not seem to notice or care that their pockets have been picked in broad daylight while it was being video-taped. I don’t find all that very interested is the reaction of the people and even the left itself who believe that Obama and his gang are anything other than in the employ of these thieves.

    We are no longer (and may have never been) in a political millieu that was mainly ideological. What we see is a struggle of various groups trying to stake their claim on our collective wealth. I genuinely think that some of them are interested in leaving us with something to avoid social chaos.  

    • banger on October 14, 2009 at 15:24
    • #

    We know form experience and Naomi Klein that any kind of crises is an opportunity to steal money and suspend the rules. Unfortunately the majority of the American people do not seem to notice or care that their pockets have been picked in broad daylight while it was being video-taped. I don’t find all that very interested is the reaction of the people and even the left itself who believe that Obama and his gang are anything other than in the employ of these thieves.

    We are no longer (and may have never been) in a political millieu that was mainly ideological. What we see is a struggle of various groups trying to stake their claim on our collective wealth. I genuinely think that some of them are interested in leaving us with something to avoid social chaos.  

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