Will New Jersey be Fooled Again? The Goldman Takeover Continues with Corzine

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As the 2009 New Jersey governor's race comes to a conclusion and President Obama flies in to save the day for Jon Corzine one has to wonder just how long it will take residents of the state to figure out how the state and national Democrats have sold out to Wall Street. Standing in the middle of that sellout by the Democrats
is their governor, the former CEO of Goldman Sachs, who helped guide and oversee the greatest case of financial deregulation in our nation's history.



Jersey residents are disgusted by the performance of Corzine since he got elected four years ago and for good reason as many of his political promises in the campaign were forgotten once he got elected, much like the promises of Obama last year. There is a lot more in common between Obama and Corzine than just the failed promises as both of them were products of the Goldman machine.

Corzine likes to preface appearances with claims of his hostile separation from Goldman back in 1999, before he ran for US Senator and then Governor. It is the only way he can position himself as a reformed Wall Street leader. It also keeps the media from digging into his real record and his real relationship with Goldman and other Wall Street powerhouses. If we could all but have such a hostile separation from our employer.



If Corzine were truly cast out by Goldman in 1999 as CEO then why did he earn over $400 million when Goldman Sachs went public, a move that Corzine directed when he was at Goldman? The governor was co-chairman at Goldman from 1994-1999 along with Hank Paulsen, yes the same guy who was Bush Treasury Secretary, and who masterminded the bailout of Wall Street along with a host of former Goldman people.

Under the Paulsen/Corzine regime Corzine participated in the great Democratic deregulation of Wall Street, the last acts of the Clinton Administration that threw open the doors for Wall Street to bring about the historic dot.com collapse, the Enron bankruptcy, the sub-prime housing mortgage collapse, the oil price spiral and the worldwide economic collapse that followed?

The Clinton White House was dominated by former Goldman executives like Rahm Emanuel and Robert Rubin whose team at the Treasury Department included Larry Summers and Timothy Geithner. All of these players are Obama's closest economic advisors. Rubin, who was Treasury Secretary started the attack leading to massive financial deregulation before handing the ball off to Summers who succeeded him as Clinton's last Treasury Secretary.



Between them, Alan Greenspan (Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank) and industry leaders such as Goldman (Paulsen and Corzine) the drastic deregulation measure, the Financial Services Modernization Act, was finally approved in 1999 which eliminated the New Deal barriers against mergers of commercial and investment banks as well as insurance companies and stockbrokers. Standing at his side as President Bill Clinton signed the legislation, Summers heralded it as “a major step forward to the 21st century”—and what a wonderful century it’s proving to be.

It was also Summers who worked in cahoots with Enron and banking lobbyists from Goldman and others who backed Republican Sen. Phil Gramm’s Commodity Futures Modernization Act also adopted in 1999 which banned any effective government regulation of the newly unleashed derivatives market. The result was not only a temporary boon to Enron, which soon collapsed under its unbridled greed, but also to the entire Wall Street financial community.

The only opposition from within the Clinton administration came from Brooksley E. Born who, as head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, in 1998 dared defy Summers and Rubin, as well as Greenspan, in proposing regulating the derivatives market. In frequent appearances before Congress, she warned that the burgeoning derivatives trading “threatens our economy without any federal agency knowing about it.”

In reward for her prescience, Born, a highly regarded legal expert on derivatives, was treated to scornful attacks from the old boys’ network, led by Rubin, Summers and Greenspan, who questioned her competency and insisted it was she who threatened the stability of the financial market. The boys in the White House and their allies on Wall Street including Goldman made quick work of her.

Thanks to this group of Goldman executives and their protégées the greatest deregulation of the financial markets since the Great depression was completed and the door opened to the swaps and derivatives markets to be exploited by Goldman and others. The result, the dot.com boom busted wiping out billions of dollars in investments, Enron energy collapsed wiping out the pensions of thousands of people. The sub-prime housing mortgage market collapsed putting the national economy on edge and oil prices spiraled into the stratosphere.



By October of one year ago the world economy faced collapse, bail out programs were given to all the culprits, and only Goldman Sachs standing alone was able to make record profits from each of the bubbles that collapsed over the past decade. That is the Corzine legacy of his tenure at Goldman Sachs. That is the tragic truth the media seems unable to address.



As for the Obama connection to Goldman, look no further than his chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, Obama's dependency on Goldman since he first ran for US Senate, and the vast number of Goldman people and protégées that surround him in the White House. Oh yes, Goldman still stands alone since they got Obama elected as their investment in the inexperienced president resulted in billions of dollars in new revenue, more billions in bonuses and even more billions in increased stock value.



Now Corzine truly cashed in on his hostile departure from Goldman which gave him $400million when his plan to take Goldman public worked and he has been making money off Goldman and Wall Street ever since through his Goldman and J P Morgan pension, investments, Goldman stock and private fund partnerships with other Goldman associates. So much money that he financed his own Senate and governor's races while setting spending records on both. So much that he refused to put his holdings in a blind trust like most responsible public officials so he could retain control over them while governor.



Can the Golden team of Obama and Corzine once more pull the wool over our eyes and strengthen the stranglehold by Wall Street over our politicians or is it time we finally wake up and say enough is enough? No more politicians bought and paid for by special interests! No more empty promises! It is time politicians accept responsibility for the mess you created and the mess you supported. In the words of a recent candidate for president, it is time for CHANGE WE BELIEVE IN and YES WE CAN make it happen. You have two other good choices, why settle for less?

Note: The author lived in New Jersey for 16 years (1982 - 1998) and during that time saw a great deal of progress in changing the image of the state from being the brunt of negative jokes to being a leader in quality of living and many other issues of national importance. He also served with Governor Tom Kean 1982-89 in the NJ Energy, Housing & Community Development and Treasury Departments.

Obama on Health Care - Above the Bickering but What About the Facts

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Long on hyperbole and short on specifics, did the president connect to the public on his health care speech? Well, he spent 10% of the speech glorifying America's most liberal former Senator Ted Kennedy, a man who spent 46 years in the Senate accomplishing just about nothing on health care. I'm sure the liberal left in Boston was pleased but middle America was probably left wondering why far more time was spent on Kennedy than on financing health care.

Obama did promise he would consider tort reform to stop the proliferation of legal fees to his trial lawyers supporters but considering is hardly endorsing. He did wallow around on the public option but in the end who knows if he does or does not want it in the final bill. It would seem at a minimum he will have some trigger mechanism to implement it when the opposition dies down.




Of course if I was talking and the evil eye of Nancy Pelosi was burning holes in my back I might dance around the subject she declared essential to any bill coming out of Her House. If he does compromise with the concern of the people and drops the public option he will spend the rest of his presidency fighting her and not the Republicans.

There have been many presidential addresses to a joint Congress in our nation's history. This was just the third on health care. Yet the only time health care reform has been approved was when presidents did not address a joint session of congress on the subject, under Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson.




Some lingering questions:

How will it be financed? He acknowledged it will cost at least $900 billion over ten years. Government has never even been close to accurate on projected spending and when it comes to health care government projections have been a joke. So it will most likely cost far more.

Obama says he will not sign any bill that raises the national debt by one dollar. The Obama gang was quite shrewd in crafting a bill and identifying the cost over ten years, long after he has left the presidency. But in truth the explosive cost will be at the front end of the time period when he thinks he can add millions of uninsured people and build 54 new governmental agencies without increasing the deficit. America is so broke already they can't even give a pay raise to congress without adding to the deficit so this language is deceptive at best, dishonest at worst.

Obama says there is nearly $500 billion in fraud in our current health care system. If that is true then why is the Obama government not prosecuting the crooks stealing billions of dollars from the public treasury right now? Why not prosecute the crooks first, save the $500 billion and then fund health care reform?




How are we ever going to stop the insurance companies, stop the trial lawyers and stop the medical industry from overcharging us and restricting competition when those very industries and their lobbyists already own the president and congress? Nearly every politician in Washington is dependent on those very same bad guys to fund their upcoming reelection campaigns. Are they really going to slap the hands that feed their insatiable appetite for campaign money?

More importantly, how in the world can we spend any more money on anything when the economy is teetering, unemployment is still rising, China holds the mortgage on America, our wars have become an endless pit of money and deaths, the annual debt has hit astounding new records, the national deficit has hit staggering new levels and nothing has been done to stop Wall Street, the banks, the credit card companies and Heaven knows who else from ripping off the unsuspecting American consumer?




As long as the foxes remain in the hen house of our nation's capitol the American public does not have a chance. Obama, Pelosi, the Democrats and the Republicans have created an green environment alright, one that lines their pockets and the pockets of their lawyers, lobbyists, accountants, advisors, stock brokers and bankers with greenbacks sucked right out of your very own pockets. Reform Washington style sucks.

Mr. President - What have you accomplished?

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Has anyone noticed that time seems to be speeding up while nothing seems to be changing in this world? We have a new president but all the same problems are still here. The economy is built on a foundation of quicksand. Troops remain in Iraq. More troops have been sent to Afghanistan. North Korea and Iran both have spit in the face of our new president and his policy of engagement in dialogue with our enemies.





Nancy Pelosi continues to lead the Democratic party down the black hole of intellectual constipation and permanent inertia with her broken promises, her running from responsibility and blaming everyone else for the lack of action and leadership. Pelosi continues to slam defective bills through Congress which will have no chance of getting into law.

Thanks to the Democrats control of the universe we have the highest budget deficit in history, the highest national debt in history, two wars still underway and two more hot spots moving closer to conflict in North Korea and Iran.





Fat cats on Wall Street that backed Obama have gotten richer while those that caused the economic chaos have not been prosecuted. Green politicians like Al Gore have made a hundred million dollars off the environment and stand to make billions more while the Administration continues to fund them and ignore the oil and gas assets we do control.

Social programs have grown adding millions more to the future deficits while Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid while we do rely on and have paid for are on a fast track to destruction. Oh yes, and what happened to your 401K that was supposed to be protected by the government?





If I had all these things going wrong I think I would rent a resort home for $40,000 like Obama and go on vacation as well. Too bad he can't find a church to go to as easy as spending tens of thousands of dollars visiting resorts, going to Broadway shows, hosting million dollar Hawaiian parties for cronies, and whatever else he does for diversion. Maybe keeping him out of Washington along with the Congress is what America needs most to heal.