Bill Moyers Essay: 'Cronyism Blowout At Goldman Sachs'

Outstanding clip.  Blankfein speaks at the 2:45 mark.

Bill Moyers explains how the fiscal cliff deal gives tens of billions in tax breaks to banks and corporations (especially Goldman).  Even the Wall Street Journal called it a "crony capitalist blowout."

  Tweet

---

More details from Matt Stoller:

Eight Subsidies in the Fiscal Cliff Bill, From Goldman Sachs to Disney to NASCAR

Subsidies for Goldman Sachs Headquarters – Sec. 328 extends “tax exempt financing for York Liberty Zone,” which was a program to provide post-9/11 recovery funds.  Rather than going to small businesses affected, however, this was, according to Bloomberg, “little more than a subsidy for fancy Manhattan apartments and office towers for Goldman Sachs and Bank of America Corp.”

Michael Bloomberg himself actually thought the program was excessive, so that’s saying something.  According to David Cay Johnston, Goldman got $1.6 billion in tax free financing for its new massive headquarters through Liberty Bonds.

Comments

[DailyBail]

Morgan Stanley CEO Pushes 'Fiscal Cliff' Bipartisanship As Bank Lobbies For Tax Breaks

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/28/morgan-stanley-ceo-fiscal-cliff_n_2205756.html

[DailyBail]

Bill Moyers signs off his last broadcast with an editorial discussion on why plutocracy and democracy don't mix.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSoglDcRbAg

[Strayhorse]

It is time for Judicial Watch and other prominent legal minds to indict Obama, his administration, Congress, the Supreme Court and all the major banks in the United States; it is time to file charges of theft, insider trading, fraud, racketeering, and murder against all these individuals for the heinous damage they have levied against the American citizen with the ultimate goal of enslaving the masses through wage slavery, debt slavery and generational slavery. No baby born in America should ever have a social security number - these numbers have become the slave number for all citizens. This alone is a crime against humanity and trafficking in these numbers is digital trafficking in slavery. Charge, try and jail the bankers, and the truth will set America free. Slavery never ended in America. Obama, his administration, Congress, the Supreme Court, major banks and money houses in America linked throughout the world are trafficking in American Citizen's, their social security numbers and their working future lives being the security; many with life insurance policies traded on the various exchanges through the world like bundles mortgages. Charge, try and jail the bankers, and the truth will set America free. Slavery never ended in America.

[usurykills]

Strayhorse is right, we're being farmed.

Congress could overturn the Federal Reserve Act tomorrow, but it won't.

The US government is guilty of genocide against its own people.

[WTH]

Blankfein is an ASS. Social Security is NOT, N - O - T ... AN ENTITLEMENT PROGRAM. If a person pays into a program such as Social Security, it is money THEY paid into it, NOT THE GOVERNMENT... the government has a problem in that they failed to set that money aside for the intended purpose (they robbed Peter to pay Paul) and now they are trying to get people to get used to the idea that it is not something they can expect to live on when they retire. Maybe not, but it could certainly help supplement a person's income if the government doesn't shut it down. WELFARE, which is NOT FUNDED directly by the people IS AN ENTITLEMENT PROGRAM.

[chiller]

Save a nation...burn a bank today...

[john]

Financial crisis deal makes Buffett a major Goldman shareholder

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/03/26/187001/financial-crisis-deal-makes-buffett.html

[snip]

Warren Buffett, the ultimate buy-and-hold investor, is grabbing a big chunk of stock in Goldman Sachs Group Inc. - without having to buy it.

The deal would make Buffett's Omaha, Neb.-based investment firm, Berkshire Hathaway Inc., one of Goldman's biggest shareholders. Based on Goldman's current stock price, Buffett would wind up owning about 9 million shares, or 2 percent, of the giant investment bank when the deal closes in October.

Buffett, 82, whose business savvy earned him the nickname "Oracle of Omaha," is being rewarded for an investment that amounted to an endorsement of Goldman at the height of the financial crisis, after its Wall Street rival Lehman Bros. had collapsed.

As part of that deal in October 2008, Buffett received warrants entitling Berkshire Hathaway to buy nearly 43.5 million common shares of Goldman Sachs for $115 a share at any time for five years.

Had Buffett bought the stock at that price and sold it Tuesday morning at the going rate of about $146 a share, he would have generated a profit of more than $1.3 billion.

Instead, under an agreement announced Tuesday, the companies will do the same math in the week before the warrants expire in October. Goldman will then provide Buffett with shares equivalent in value to the profit he could have made by buying the 43.5 million shares and then selling them.

For Goldman Sachs, the deal is less dilutive for existing shareholders at a time when the Federal Reserve has criticized the firm's capital plans. And for Buffett, the deal will provide what he loves best - ownership in a company he regards as a long-term winner.

He already had made about $1.7 billion on another part of his 2008 deal with Goldman - an investment in preferred stock that the Wall Street firm repurchased because it was paying Buffett such a hefty dividend - 10 percent annually.