New York Fed chairman quits over Goldman Sachs ties

Yep, a rotation of the good old ivy league boys club.

Too bad its not close to the "let them eat cake" theory. Americans are too bought off still to care about a very few stealing everything.

Don't recall any Chosen Ones representing anything other than big banking/global finance types.

Dennis Hughes sounds really un-Chosen to me.

Catching on across the pond too:

Study reveals true extent of 'old boys network' between Government and banks

03 May 2009
By Tom Peterkin, Scottish Political Editor

LINKS between Government and the banking sector have been condemned in a new report that has uncovered the extent of the "old boys network" at the top of British public life.
Britain has a greater culture of cronyism than Europe or the US, according to the study, which identified key individuals who have moved jobs between politics, financial institutions and the bodies charged with regulating the banking industry.

The report warns the close relations between business and politics "lead to a conflict of interest at best and a suspension of critical faculties at worst".

The study of 116 of the world's most successful companies will be presented to a Global Forum on Public Governance, run by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), in Paris this week.

The research looked at so-called "revolving door connections", when a company employs former or current politicians, civil servants or members of regulatory bodies, or where individuals move from the financial sector into politics, Government or regulatory bodies.

Barclays was the most connected British-based company with 14 revolving door connections.

Two of the Barclays examples were Mark Clarke and Sarah Cox. Clarke is director general of finance at the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, but worked at Barclays from 2000 to 2003. Cox was an international consultant at Barclays from 2001 to 2004 and has since joined the UK Cabinet Office's business support group.

"The Government and the political classes have very close links to the banking industry," said the report's author David Miller, a Professor of Sociology at Strathclyde University, who specialises in researching lobbying.

"I believe this could be one of the factors behind the disaster that has befallen the financial markets. There has not been enough regulation of these connections."

The organisations with more than five revolving door connections were Royal Bank of Scotland, HBOS/Lloyds Group, Barclays, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Dexia Group, HSBC Holdings, JP Morgan Chase and Co, Standard Chartered Bank and UBS.

Six individuals with RBS connections included Quentin Davies, Labour MP and a minister at the Ministry of Defence, who was an RBS adviser until 2003, and Sir Philip Hampton, RBS's chairman, former chief executive of the Government-owned UK Financial Investments.

Perhaps the best known person with HBOS connections named in the report is Sir James Crosby, who was chief executive of the bank from 2001 to 2006 before leaving to become deputy chairman of the Financial Services Authority (FSA), the UK body responsible for regulating the financial sector.

Crosby resigned from the FSA after claims by the whistleblower Paul Moore, the former head of risk at HBOS, that he mismanaged the bank.

Three revolving door connections were identified at Standard Life, including Gerry Grimstone, the chairman of the board who was appointed as one of the UK's Business Ambassadors in January.

Paul Flynn, Labour MP and member of Westminster's Public Administration Select Committee, said:

"Coziness is the enemy of efficiency and coziness leads to a lazy brainedness and a lack of thinking and inventiveness."

A Barclays spokesman said: "Barclays recruits people on the basis of their skills and experience, whether as full-time staff, as non-executive directors or as part-time advisers.

"Where they may have held senior roles in the public sector, their recruitment is undertaken in line with governmental and civil service governance policies."

A spokeswoman for Scottish Financial Enterprise, the body that represents the Scottish financial services industry, said: "From our point of view, the greater the understanding between business and the public sector the better."

A Standard Life spokesman said: "It's important that any board has a wide variety of backgrounds and experience, which is what we have at Standard Life."

RBS and HBOS declined to comment.
[link to scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com]

And I don't recall the AFL-CIO demanding billions in "rescue/bailout" money. At least they are stiffing for the working people who actually work for a living.

What's the average "overpaid" worker-to-hard-working CEO salary ratio these days?

Here's a clue ... and this is an "average" CEO

"In 2005, an average Chief Executive Officer (CEO) was paid 821 times as much as a minimum wage earner, who earns just $5.15 per hour. An average CEO earns more before lunchtime on the very first day of work in the year than a minimum wage worker earns all year."

Hughes got a big raise ... before he was earning ...

Section 4

The President shall receive a salary of $192,500 per annum, payable weekly. The Executive Council is empowered between conventions to make such increases in the President’s annual salary as the Council determines are warranted. Each report of the Executive Council to a regular convention shall specify any action taken since the preceding report pursuant to this provision and the President’s annual salary as ­adjusted at the time of the report.

Shock and disbelief ... bankers taking unfair advantage? All that's new is someone is actually talking about and questioning it. Nothing new here. Move on.

Yep, if you've followed the raping of the usa. You'll notice the commenators of the bought off media seem to mention that that person was a goldman sachs employee at one time or another. Interesting. Add the cia to the mix and you might find most of the corruption going on in the last 50 years.

Dual citizens of tardtown and weenieland wouldn't be aware of this, so that's probably why you don't know.

Well we are giving the auto makers to the Unions, so why not the banks. Make it like a real workers paradise from the top down.

I thought we were giving the usa auto makers over to forign owned companys. Which I'm not sure what their rules are as far as unions. My dad thinks fiat is just another inside job. MIght be interesting to find out who really owns and runs fiat.

Awake up.... OBAMA IS THE DEVIL or he would be screaming about this.... He is in on the deal... and he has the best jet and an army at his disposal.

Our Country is being stolen right out from under our nose and Congress is doing nothing about it. The DemoCRAPS are just sucking this up.

April 28 (Bloomberg) -- The United Auto Workers union’s retiree health-care fund will own 55 percent of Chrysler LLC in exchange for cutting in half the automaker’s $10.6 billion cash obligation to the trust, people familiar with the matter said. Fiat SpA would get 20 percent of the company to start, with the ability to increase ownership to 35 percent by hitting performance goals. The Treasury would keep 10 percent. [link to www.bloomberg.com]

That leaves ummmm...after FIAT going to a full 35%....minus 10....plus 55.....ummm...ZERO percent left over...I guess the current share and debt holders get that, pretty good deal.

FIAT lost 536 million dollars in the first quarter of this year so they are doing real well.

"Net debt increased to 6.6 billion euros at the end of March, from 5.9 billion euros at the end of 2008.

Fiat, facing a U.S. government-imposed April 30 deadline to conclude a Chrysler partnerhip, reiterated it won’t invest cash in the U.S. automaker. Sanford C. Bernstein Ltd. analyst Max Warburton said yesterday the company may have to sell its “jewel assets” like the CNH Global NV agricultural and construction-equipment unit to fund the Chrysler alliance.

Marchionne’s quest for a tie-up defies analyst concern that he may jeopardize Fiat’s survival at a time European carmakers face overcapacity and falling sales. European auto sales fell 9 percent in March, even as governments across Europe introduced incentive schemes to bolster demand.

“They are facing a crisis, so I would say all resources must be devoted to Fiat first and Chrysler second,” Dieng of Natixis said."

[link to www.bloomberg.com]

GM will likely go 58% to the UAW.

General Motors Corp. may be more likely to end up in bankruptcy based on the Obama administration’s willingness to place Chrysler LLC into court protection to safeguard union health-care benefits.

With GM and its biggest bondholders at odds over resolving $27 billion in unsecured claims by a June 1 deadline, the Chrysler model indicates that President Barack Obama may resort to bankruptcy to end any impasse over that debt, said Martin Fridson, chief executive officer of New York-based credit investment firm Fridson Investment Advisors.

Chrysler filed for protection April 30 after the U.S. was unable to persuade secured lenders to swap $6.9 billion in claims for $2.25 billion in cash. A union retiree health-care trust was offered a 55 percent stake in Chrysler.

“This confirms the fear, which right along has been that the Obama administration is more sensitive or beholden to the unions than the bondholders,” Fridson said. “It makes it clear that GM bondholders aren’t likely to be able to work out anything outside of bankruptcy.”

GM bondholders proposed April 30 they get a 58 percent ownership stake in the Detroit-based automaker in exchange for their $27 billion in unsecured claims. Bondholders are objecting to GM’s proposal they get a 10 percent share of GM equity while a union health fund would get $10 billion in cash and as much as a 39 percent stake for $20 billion in unsecured claims.

Renee Rashid-Merem, a GM spokeswoman, Roger Kerson, a UAW spokesman, and Jenni Engebretsen, a Treasury spokeswoman, declined to comment on the matter.

[link to www.bloomberg.com]

The President of the AFL-CIO makes around $200 grand a year. That's a weekly bonus for the Goldman Sachs and Friends group. I don't know about you, but I'd rather be a "worker" at GS than an auto maker. Don't have to get your hands dirty, either.

Goldman Sachs is part of a lot of conspiratorial stuff. For example they're friends with a lot of anti-paranormal "skeptic" groups, many of which take orders from you know who.

jail time??? for all of DC and wallstreet?