Sunday, August 9, 2009

Did Henry Paulson Act To Save Goldman Sachs?

The truth about what really happened last September when AIG was bailed out by the U.S. taxpayer has been revealed by the NY Times. It now appears that Henry Paulson worked very closely with Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein to order to shape the framework used to bail out AIG (from the NY Times):

"While Mr. Paulson spoke to many Wall Street executives during that period, he was in very frequent contact with Lloyd C. Blankfein, Goldman’s chief executive, according to a copy of Mr. Paulson’s calendars acquired by The New York Times through a Freedom of Information Act request...During the week of the A.I.G. bailout alone, Mr. Paulson and Mr. Blankfein spoke two dozen times, the calendars show, far more frequently than Mr. Paulson did with other Wall Street executives."

It now appears that former Goldman CEO Henry Paulson,in acting as Treasury Secretary, was in direct conflict of interest in this role, as he appears to have been in continuous contact with the CEO of his former firm creating a bailout plan which funnelled more than $10 billion in money to Goldman Sachs thru AIG.

In a riveting interrogation of Pauslon during Ccongressional testimony last month, Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Florida) aggressively questions Paulson's role, conflict of interest and whether or not Paulson should have recused himself from the bailout of AIG, which now appears to be an indirect of bailout of Goldman Sachs (this is must-watch if you have not seen it, as Paulson is clearly unnerved by the Stearn's questions and at one point is unable to form words to answer Stearns):

Rep. Stearns Grills Paulson

We have suspected all along that Paulson, in his bailout of AIG, acted to bailout some Wall Street firms who were exposed to a collapse of AIG. It now appears that he was working closely with Goldman Sachs to make sure this happened. Here is the article from the NY Times so you can decide for yourself:

Did Paulson Bailout Goldman?

Keep in mind that if we could conduct an independent audit of the Federal Reserve, the truth would be exposed for all to see. Understand that AIG is intentionally being kept out of bankruptcy court because AIG would then be subjected to the full disclosure of the legal discovery process. It was not until this point in the Enron bankruptcy that we saw the true fraudulent nature of Enron's off-balance-sheet assets. What would we discover about the nature of AIG's off-balance-sheet derivatives, and specifically Goldman Sachs' exposure to an AIG collapse if AIG were put in chapter 11 bankruptcy the way every other massively insolvent firm is?

5 comments:

  1. This story turns my stomach. So much going on that should be illegal, but all is ok because of "systemic risk".

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  2. My only hope is that someone goes after Paulson legally.

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  3. I read the article today. It just confirmed what I had already suspected. Nothing surprising, or new really.

    It's very intersting to note how market psychology works. If this story came out in the first week of March whent he market was tanking, you would see plenty of hype surrounding the story. It may even be accompanied by protesting.

    Of course, during a bear market rally, stories like these don't stir up nearly as much anger amongst the masses.

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  4. (Mis): I agree it just reaffirms what we already knew. But, the NY Times is widely read across the country and puts the spotlight back on the whole situation. A lot of people might has suspected foul play but this confirms it. And the Financial Times brings up the good point that the article only talks about the phone conversations that took place from Paulson's office. What about cell phone conversations and weekend private meetings?

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  5. We can only wonder how far down the rabbit hole goes ....

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