If Liz were Queen

If you can only hold one thought, hold this one:  Goldman Sachs did not merely get $10 billion dollars directly from the American taxpayer.  They got $30 billion. $10 billion of which they repaid and made a big arrogant show about.  $20 billion of which they will NEVER repay.  That $20 billion is their “success” that they brag about today–taxpayer money.

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I just read an article in The New York Times titled Don’t Fail or Reward Success. It was in regard to the people’s anger toward Goldman Sachs.  I don’t know if the author Andres Ross Sorkin is ignorant or if he is just another corporate shill for Wall Street.  It’s difficult to separate the two any more. I will assume that he is another corporate shill since he works for the New York Times and can’t be THAT stupid.

In his article, Mr. Sorkin implies that Goldman Sachs has been “successful”.  The only thing that Goldman Sachs HAS been successful at is at having people like Hank Paulson, an ex-CEO of their firm as Secretary of the U.S. Treasury and now Tim Geithner to transfer the wealth of the people to Goldman Sachs.

“.  .   .   So should we be upset about the bonuses? Is this a problem? Viscerally, it can be infuriating to watch Goldman executives gobble up piles of money, especially when the government — an overused euphemism for taxpayers — had helped support the firm. It hasn’t been forgotten that the government gave Goldman $10 billion in bailout cash — which it has since returned and said it never needed. And don’t forget the cheap financing it now gets as a bank holding company.  .  .”

Yes, Mr. Sorkin, we should be upset about the bonuses.  Yes, Mr. Sorkin, it is a problem.  No Mr. Sorkin, Goldman Sach should NOT get cheap financing.

I don’t know if Mr. Sorkin misunderstands or if he is being purposefully obtuse, but Goldman Sachs got a helluval lot more money DIRECTLY FROM THE TAXPAYERS than their $10 billion dollar handout.  We bailed out AIG (insurance), who by the way are in trouble still, with $80 billion dollars of the taxpayers’ money.

Of that $80 billion, AIG “paid back” Goldman Sachs with $20 billion. Who knows how much money was owned Goldman Sachs from other banks that got taxpayer  hand outs.

THIS AND THIS ALONE EXPLAINS GOLDMAN SACHS “SUCCESS”–THE BACKS OF THEIR SERFS, THE TAXPAYERS.  The did not merely receive $10 billion from the taxpayers, they got at least $30 billion of which they “handsomely and arrogantly paid back the $10 billion to the American people with a fraction of the interest that they charge their own customers–keeping $20 billion of OUR MONEY FOR THEMSELVES.

DO YOU GET IT, MR. SORKIN, OR ARE YOU PLAYING DUMB?

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But their misrepresentation of the truth does not stop there.  If you think for one second that Blankfein was not putting pressure on insurance CEOs to bolt from the Baucus Agreement yesterday, I think that you are wrong.

WALL STREET PEOPLE ARE ALL CONNECTED AND WORK TOGETHER–THE INSURANCE INDUSTRY AND THE BANKING INDUSTRY ARE ALL PART OF THE FILM-FLAM FINANCIAL INDUSTRY THAT RULES WALL STREET AND OUR NATION.

THE ONLY WAY THAT WE WILL HAVE A REAL DEMOCRACY IN OUR NATION IS TO REMOVE AS MANY CORPORATE  SHILLS FROM OUR CONGRESS AS POSSIBLE.   We have a great opportunity in  2010 with the 14 Republican Senators that  I have named. There are a few blue dogs like Blanche Lincoln who can go with them too.