Obama "Financial Crisis Commission" refuses to address rash of phone calls between Goldman pals

11 phone calls made in 2 days at height of 'crisis'. More may have been made via cell phone or from home. Obama's so-called Financial Crisis Commission refuses to mention this.

• 7/13/10, "Here's something the Financial Crisis Commission Could Look at," NY Post, J. Crudele

"On Sept. 17, 2008, with the markets in disarray, Paulson called his pal Blankfein at 9:10 a.m., 12:15 p.m., 4:15 p.m., 7:20 p.m. and 8:45 p.m.

• On Sept. 18, with the markets still in crisis and any information received from the Treasury Secretary worth its weight in illegal trading, Paulson and Blankfein spoke at 6:55 a.m., 7:05 a.m., 8:40 a.m., 12:15 p.m., 1:05 p.m. and at 4:30 p.m.

Conversations between these two men occurred on a regular basis."...

• No one in Obama's commission has mentioned these phone calls. There is no indication they will ever do so...****

8/8/09, "During Crisis, Paulson's calls to Goldman Sachs posed ethics test," NY Times

"“I operated very consistently within the ethic guidelines I had as secretary of the Treasury,” Mr. Paulson responded, adding that he asked for an ethics waiver for his interactions with his old firm “when it became clear that we had some very significant issues with Goldman Sachs.”

Mr. Paulson did not say when he received a waiver, but copies of two waivers he received — from the White House counsel’s office and the Treasury Department — show they were

• issued on the afternoon of Sept. 17, 2008.

That date was in the middle of the most perilous week of the financial crisis and a day after the government agreed to lend $85 billion to the American International Group, which used the money to pay off Goldman and other big banks that were financially threatened by A.I.G.’s potential collapse."...

• Yes, Bush started this, but Obama not only did not stop it, he made it much worse. ed.

• Paulson was at Goldman Sachs for 30+ years, from 1974 until George Bush hired him.

10/13/08, "Paulson, according to a celebratory 2006 BusinessWeek article entitled “Mr. Risk Goes to Washington,” was “one of the key architects of a more daring Wall Street, where securities firms are taking greater and greater chances in their pursuit of profits.”

• Under Paulson’s watch, that meant “taking on more debt: $100 billion in long-term debt in 2005, compared with about $20 billion in 1999. It means placing
  
• big bets on all sorts of exotic derivatives and other securities.”

According to the International Herald Tribune, Paulson “was one of the first Wall Street leaders to recognize how drastically investment banks could enhance their profitability by betting with their own capital instead of acting as mere intermediaries.” Paulson “stubbornly assert[ed] Goldman’s right to invest in, advise on and finance deals,

• regardless of potential conflicts.”

Paulson then handsomely benefited from the speculative boom. This wealth was based on financial manipulation and did nothing to create real value in the economy. On the contrary, the extraordinary enrichment of individuals like Paulson was the corollary to the

• dismantling of the real economy, the bankrupting of the government, and the
  
• impoverishment of masses the world over.

Paulson was compensated to the tune of $30 million in 2004 and took home $37 million in 2005. In his career at Goldman Sachs he built up a personal net worth of over $700 million, according to estimates.

After Paulson’s ascension to the treasury, his colleagues at Goldman Sachs carried on the bonanza."...from democrats.com

• (written in 2008 before they realized Obama had no intention of stopping Goldman Sachs). ed.