Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Maxine Waters confronts Geithner on Goldman Sachs

It's been a while since I've posted a video on my blog. This is a great one! Congresswoman Maxine Water is in rare form grilling Geithner on the Goldman Sachs role in the bailout. Has she been reading my blog? I couldn't have done it better myself. It's great to get Tim Geithner on the record.



What I don't understand is how Treasury Secretary Geithner could deny that GS CEO Lloyd Blankfein was present during discussions regarding the demise of Lehman Brothers and the propping up of AIG which are the events that led Paulson and Bernanke to come rushing in a panic to Congress for the original $700 billion in bailout money. As we now know that was just a downpayment from the taxpayers to the Wall St. bankers to keep their gigantic Ponzi scheme running a little while longer.

Representative Waters even got in a good lick on Geithner's chief of staff Mark Patterson who is an ex-lobbyist for Goldman Sachs. As I said its good to get this information on the Congressional Record. Perhaps Dennis Kucinich can pick it up from here and dig deeper into the topic of Goldman Sachs' abuses of the government bailout.

What we really need is a special prosecutor to handle this issue. I can absolutely sympathize with the congresswoman's concern over the amount of time she has to ask questions. I've been watching a number of congressional hearings lately and I have noticed how these officials will burn up time by offering up longwinded answers to simple questions. They know that once a congressperson's 5 minutes are up then it's the next representatives turn. By sucking up the time in this way they avoid having to answer any substantial questions. I saw Bernanke do this recently. Most congresspeople are too polite to interrupt an answer, but not Maxine! Some times you just have to play a little rough and dirty.

Next up I'd like to see Maxine Waters grilling ex-Treas-Sec "Hank" Paulson on some of these same topics. It's a shame that other members of Congress don't have the integrity to follow up on this line of questions regarding the role of Goldman Sachs in the bailout. Still, at least it's good to know that there are some members of Congress looking out for the interests of the American People.

Good work Ms. Waters! We thank you. And please, keep it up!

Related Posts

  • Welcome to the Wall St. jungle - This contains information about the AIG money that was passed on to GS, and the meeting that GS CEO Blankfein attended to arrange the AIG bailout.
  • SIGTARP is the new sheriff in town - This is about the Special Inspector General which is part of the TARP plan and could lead an investigation on Goldman Sachs. The problem is that Neil Barofsky who was appointed to this post by Bush has shown no inclination to do so.
  • The Goldman Sachs "secret handshake" - This gets into detail about Mark Patterson, the ex-lobbyist for GS that is now Geithner's chief of staff. It also covers some of the other GS connections in government and at the Federal Reserve.  

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

"The decisions being made are not in the best interest of the American People"?

Is that guy smoking crack?

Hell, every decision being made is against the best interests of the American People!

Frank Hope said...

@anonymous

I take it you are referring to a comment at the end of the video by Tim Geithner who pretends to take offense at Congresswoman Waters' line of questioning that suggests that decisions were being made to benefit the interests of Wall St. ahead of the interests of the American People. It's a quaint notion that some of us have that this should be a government "for the people", rather than a government for the Wall St. banks.

And thanks for reminding me about this video. It's particularly apropos these days because Bernanke just got grilled by Congress about some shady dealings involving Merrill Lynch. And I've read that Paulson will be testifying sometime in the next few weeks as well. If Congress ever truly investigated the bailouts, those two would be behind bars along with Mr. Geithner who perjured himself in his responses to Waters regarding Goldman Sachs' involvement in the bailouts.

Anonymous said...

Maxine has a way of mangling her terminology, but in this case it made for a nice moment. Geithner wanted so much to say his "CEO" had no association with Goldman, but he knew darn well what she was asking.

Also, he could not bring himself to say, "Yes, he worked for Goldman." It was "At some point in the past he was employed by Goldman for some period of time."

Waters oftimes comes across like she doesn't really understand what she's asking, but she sure as heck isn't afraid to ask tough questions and she isn't worried how it makes her look. I wouldn't want all congressmen to be like her, but in small doses, it's good.

Frank Hope said...

@anonymous - Oct 31

Clearly Waters was being fed some of this information by her staff and she did not have a full understanding of the details. But whoever was advising her provided her with all the right questions. As I've said before, Geithner committed perjury during this testimony regarding Goldman's involvement with the Fed handling of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers.

I give Waters full credit for standing up for the American people - something most congresspeople only pretend to do, while at the same time accepting gifts and bribes from corporate America. The amount of corruption in Congress is absolutely shameful. I suggest spending sometime over at the Open Secrets website to get a feel for just how bad it is. If you can stomach it that is. Just take a look at any committee chairperson and see how much money they are receiving from the very same industries they are supposed to be overseeing.

Here is Obama's top list of contributors as revealed on OpenSecrets.org.

University of California $1,591,395
Goldman Sachs $994,795
Harvard University $854,747
Microsoft Corp $833,617
Google Inc $803,436
Citigroup Inc $701,290
JPMorgan Chase & Co $695,132
Time Warner $590,084
Sidley Austin LLP $588,598
Stanford University $586,557
National Amusements Inc $551,683
UBS AG $543,219
Wilmerhale Llp $542,618
Skadden, Arps et al $530,839
IBM Corp $528,822
Columbia University $528,302
Morgan Stanley $514,881
General Electric $499,130
US Government $494,820
Latham & Watkins $493,835