France 24 reports on how Goldman Sachs has infiltrated EU countries and financial institutions

[JohnyCanuck]

Run time: 04:22 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpNlnpn0Jvk   Posted on YouTube: November 16, 2011 By YouTube Member: france24english Views on YouTube: 1587   Posted on DU: November 17, 2011 By DU Member: JohnyCanuck Views on DU: 2077

 
France 24 discussion (in English) of a report in Le Monde about how ex-Goldman Sachs execs and consultants now appear in influential positions in EU governments and banking circles.

[izquierdista]

1. This is news?

How about Hank Paulson, who ran Treasury for the express benefit of GS?

[dotymed]

2. Yes, Goldman Sachs is THE bank that manipulates the

world economy for the 1%, because they are a large part of the 1%.

Golman Sachs was paid 1/2 a billion $ to hide the massive denbt of Greece until the Socialists took power. Of course, then the Socialists were blamed for this huge "new" national debt.

[katty]

3. GS does not recognize any conflict of interest, ONLY their interest

and to hell with everyone not in their club.

[JohnyCanuck]

4. Goldman Sachs faces scrutiny over Greek debt swap

Greek currency deal with Goldman helped to disguise scale of debts

European leaders have criticised Goldman Sachs and other investment banks following allegations that they helped Greece to disguise the true scale of its debts over several years.

"It's a scandal if it turned out that the same banks that brought us to the brink of the abyss helped to fake the statistics," Germany's chancellor Angela Merkel said in a speech at a conference in Germanylast night.

Eurostat, the European Union's statistical office, has already asked Greece to clarify the use of some derivatives contracts set up from 2001 with banks including Goldman Sachs. Greek officials and banking sources claim those contracts were legal until Eurostat stopped accepting them a few years later.

snip

The European Parliament's economic and monetary affairs committee has also urged EU commissioner Olli Rehn to explain the banks' role, and to specify what action he plans to take "to stop banks assisting European governments in hiding public debt", Arlene McCarthy, the committee's vice-president said recently.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/feb/18/greece-goldman-sachs-debt-derivatives

[JohnyCanuck]

5. What price the new democracy? Goldman Sachs conquers Europe

It is not just Mr Monti. The European Central Bank, another crucial player in the sovereign debt drama, is under ex-Goldman management, and the investment bank's alumni hold sway in the corridors of power in almost every European nation, as they have done in the US throughout the financial crisis. Until Wednesday, the International Monetary Fund's European division was also run by a Goldman man, Antonio Borges, who just resigned for personal reasons.

Even before the upheaval in Italy, there was no sign of Goldman Sachs living down its nickname as "the Vampire Squid", and now that its tentacles reach to the top of the eurozone, sceptical voices are raising questions over its influence. The political decisions taken in the coming weeks will determine if the eurozone can and will pay its debts – and Goldman's interests are intricately tied up with the answer to that question.

Simon Johnson, the former International Monetary Fund economist, in his book 13 Bankers, argued that Goldman Sachs and the other large banks had become so close to government in the run-up to the financial crisis that the US was effectively an oligarchy. At least European politicians aren't "bought and paid for" by corporations, as in the US, he says. "Instead what you have in Europe is a shared world-view among the policy elite and the bankers, a shared set of goals and mutual reinforcement of illusions."

This is The Goldman Sachs Project. Put simply, it is to hug governments close. Every business wants to advance its interests with the regulators that can stymie them and the politicians who can give them a tax break, but this is no mere lobbying effort. Goldman is there to provide advice for governments and to provide financing, to send its people into public service and to dangle lucrative jobs in front of people coming out of government. The Project is to create such a deep exchange of people and ideas and money that it is impossible to tell the difference between the public interest and the Goldman Sachs interest.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/what-price-the-new-democracy-goldman-sachs-conquers-europe-6264091.html