De Macht in de Wereld

De werkelijke macht in de wereld, de financiele macht, doet niet eens meer een poging om de schijn van democratie hoog te houden. De Los Angeles Times bericht: 'Goldman Sachs rules the world
With Paulson's appointment as Treasury secretary, the firm is supreme in matters political and economic.

WHAT IS it about Goldman Sachs? President Bush's nomination last week of Henry M. Paulson Jr., Goldman Sachs' chairman and chief executive, to replace John W. Snow at the Treasury Department has refocused attention on what has become, quite simply, the most influential company on the planet.
Goldman Sachs alums now run the White House bureaucracy (in new Chief of Staff Joshua B. Bolten), , the state of New Jersey (Gov. Jon Corzine) and the New York Stock Exchange (Chief Executive John Thain). Not since John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil — and maybe not even then — has one firm exerted such muscle over national economic and fiscal policy. Goldman Sachs' reach has expanded in part because the people who run the firm have done it enormously well. The company's 40% profit margins make it a superpower, and its soaring share price and generous bonus policies have helped turn hundreds of its 24,000 employees into millionaires. But that in itself doesn't explain Goldman Sachs' allure. Most Wall Street firms are making buckets of money, and lots of executives hitting middle age feel compelled to punch the public-service clock. Nor is the company without faults. Goldman Sachs has become so dominant — particularly in investment banking and trading — that it increasingly finds it hard not to step on its own toes. Critics howled, for instance, when Goldman Sachs represented both sides in the New York Stock Exchange's purchase of electronic rival Archipelago, which Goldman Sachs also owned a stake in. These same skeptics are looking warily at Goldman Sachs extending its influence into Europe now that Thain, a former president of the firm, plans to expand the exchange's reach into Europe in a $10-billion deal.' Lees verder:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-op-pope4jun04,0,1401923.story?coll=la-home-commentary