Tijdens de uitzending van Pauw en Witteman op 3 oktober van dit jaar over de Amerikaanse presidentsverkiezing vroeg Witteman zijn gasten het volgende:
'Waarom is de armoede niet de topic van de campagne?'
De auteur Geert Mak reageerde onmiddellijk met de bewering dat de armoede 'onderhuids natuurlijk wel' een topic was. 'Bij Obama speelt het erg over het verdedigen van verworven rechten.' Welnu, dit laatste is apert onjuist, tenminste als we afgaan op de werkelijkheid. Het eerste wat Obama als president deed was zich omringen met neoliberalen als economische en financiele adviseurs die fervente tegenstanders zijn van 'verworven rechten' voor degenen die niet rijk zijn:
'The Bankers on Obama's Team
The latest round of Wall Street muckety-mucks now in charge of regulation.
SEE MORE CHARTS 
GOLDMAN SACHS CEO turned Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson wasn't the first, or the last, to use the revolving door between Wall Street and Washington. Here's a short list of Obama officials who got their start in the private sector—many, like Paulson, at "Government Sachs."
OFFICIAL
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CURRENT ROLE IN WASHINGTON
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PREVIOUS ROLE ON WALL STREET
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Neal Wolin
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Deputy secretary of the treasury (Tim Geithner's No. 2)
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Exec at one of the largest insurance and investment firms
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Treasury secretary's chief of staff
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Goldman Sachs lobbyist
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Gene Sperling
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Counselor to the treasury secretary
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Made nearly $900,000 advising Goldman Sachs
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Obama's chief economic adviser
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Made $5 million as managing director of a hedge fund
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Rahm Emanuel
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White House chief of staff
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Made $16 million as a partner at a Chicago investment bank
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Herbert Allison
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Assistant secretary of the treasury (oversees TARP)
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Longtime exec at Merrill Lynch; headed Fannie Mae
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Kim Wallace
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Assistant secretary of the treasury for legislative affairs
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Managing director at Barclays Capital and Lehman Brothers
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Karthik Ramanathan
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Acting assistant treasury secretary for financial markets
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Foreign exchange dealer at Goldman Sachs
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Matthew Kabaker
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Deputy assistant secretary of the treasury
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Made $5.8 million at the Blackstone Group in 2008-2009
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Lewis Alexander
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Counselor to the treasury secretary
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Chief economist at Citigroup; paid $2.4 million in 2008-2009
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Adam Storch
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Managing executive of the SEC's Division of Enforcement
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VP of Goldman Sachs' Business Intelligence Group
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Lee Sachs
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Counselor to the treasury secretary
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Made more than $3 million at a New York hedge fund
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Gary Gensler
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Chairman of Commodity Futures Trading Commission
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18 years at Goldman Sachs, where he made partner
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Michael Froman
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Deputy assistant to Obama, deputy nat'l security adviser
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Managing director of a Citigroup investment arm
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FRIDAY, AUG 10, 2012 04:48 PM CEST
Obama’s Goldman-Sachs surrender
More evidence of impotence: The Justice Department will not prosecute the investment bank for mortgage fraud
Goldman Sachs Group's chairman and chief executive officer Lloyd Blankfein and other bank chiefs testify on Capitol Hill in Washington before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission on Thursday, May 10, 2012. (Credit: AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
Rarely does one see a more perfect illustration of the Obama administration’s tortured relationship with Wall Street.
On August 9, the Justice Department and the SEC both announced the end of investigations into potential criminal behavior related to Goldman’s handling of mortgage-backed securities in the runup to the financial crisis. That same day, the Center for Responsive Politics reported that Goldman’s employees had switched from giving 75 percent of their campaign donations to Democratic candidates in 2008 to giving 70 percent of their donations to Republicans in 2012.
That’s called having your mortgage fraud cake and eating it too.
Whether motivated by sheer pique at Obama’s mildly derogatory comments about “fat cat” bankers, or annoyed by his calls to raise their taxes back to the perilous heights of the Clinton years, or simply incensed at Dodd-Frank’s potential inroads against Goldman’s profit machine, the much put-upon employees of the world’s most famous investment bank are giving Democrats the cold shoulder. At the very same time, a Democratic administration is sending up the white flag of surrender, acknowledging that it simply can’t bring Wall Street to account for its misdeeds before and during the financial crisis.
And misdeeds there were, as the 635-page Levin-Coburn report on the financial crisis, which was released in April 2011, makes clear beyond any reasonable doubt. Goldman knew that the mortgage-backed securities it was packaging together were crap. Yet, it sought out suckers to sell the trash to and cashed in by betting that the products it was packaging and selling off would implode in value. Sure, everyone on Wall Street was engaged in the same games — the big difference with Goldman was that they were much, much better at it, and got out while the getting was still good.
CONTINUE READING
Andrew Leonard is a staff writer at Salon. On Twitter, @koxinga21.'
JPMorgan Employees Join Goldman Sachs Among Top Obama Donors
By Jonathan D. Salant - Mar 21, 2012 5:01 AM GMT+0100
President Barack Obama’s largest campaign donors last month included employees of Wells Fargo & Co., (WFC) JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), according to an analysis of Federal Election Commission records.
Their support indicates that Wall Street, which gave Obama $16 million for his successful 2008 White House run, is opening its checkbook again for the president. The contributions helped Obama raise $21 million in February, including $6.5 million transferred from a joint fundraising committee with the Democratic National Committee.
“The reality is the election has evolved from being Obama versus Obama to Obama versus a Republican alternative,” said Robert Zimmerman, a Democratic National Committee member and Obama fundraiser. “Now that contributors, party activists and citizens are seeing the choice, you’re seeing more support emerge for Barack Obama.”
Aanvullende inmformatie betreffende Larry Summers:
Chief Economist at the World Bank
Summers left Harvard in 1991 and served as Chief Economist for the World Bank until 1993.
As Chief Economist, Summers stated in a 1991 interview: “There are no... limits to the carrying capacity of the earth that are likely to bind any time in the foreseeable future. There isn't a risk of an apocalypse due to global warming or anything else. The idea that we should put limits on growth because of some natural limit, is a profound error and one that, were it ever to prove influential, would have staggering social costs.”
[edit]"Dirty Industries" controversy
Further information: Summers memo
In December 1991, while at the World Bank, Summers signed a memo that was leaked to the press... The memo stated that "the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that.... I've always thought that under-populated countries in Africa are vastly underpolluted."[9]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Summers
Ons kent Ons: Nog een bankier werkzaam voor Obama:
Timothy Franz Geithner (
/ˈɡaɪtnər/; born August 18, 1961) is an American economist, central banker, and civil servant. He is the 75th and current United States Secretary of the Treasury, serving under PresidentBarack Obama... Geithner believes, along with Henry Paulson, that the U.S. Department of the Treasury needs new authority to experiment with responses to the late-2000s (decade) financial crisis.[14] Paulson has described Geithner as a "very unusually talented young man...[who] understands government and understands markets".[24]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Geithner /ˈɡaɪtnər/; born August 18, 1961) is an American economist, central banker, and civil servant. He is the 75th and current United States Secretary of the Treasury, serving under PresidentBarack Obama... Geithner believes, along with Henry Paulson, that the U.S. Department of the Treasury needs new authority to experiment with responses to the late-2000s (decade) financial crisis.[14] Paulson has described Geithner as a "very unusually talented young man...[who] understands government and understands markets".[24]
Lloyd Craig Blankfein (born September 20, 1954)[1] is an American business executive. He is the CEO and Chairman of Goldman Sachs... Blankfein is a contributor to mostly Democratic party candidates and donated $4,600 to Democratic Party candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2007.[20]Goldman employees and their relatives contributed almost a million dollars to Barack Obama's presidential campaign — making it "the company from which Obama raised the most money in 2008" — and Blankfein has visited the White House ten times as of February 2011.[21] Former Goldman executives who hold senior positions in the Obama administration include Gary Gensler, the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission; Mark Patterson, a former Goldman lobbyist who is chief of staff to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner; and Robert Hormats, the undersecretary of state for economic, energy and agricultural affairs.[22] With regard to his personal political views, Blankfein has described himself as "a registered Democrat, and a Rockefeller Republican ... conservative on fiscal issues and more liberal on social issues".[23]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lloyd_Blankfein
Department Of Justice has been doing a lot of immunizing of late. There’s Lloyd Blankfein, who not only ripped off his clients with “one shitty deal,” he then lied to Congress about it.
http://www.emptywheel.net/2012/09/02/immunizing-crimes-blankstein-zirbel-and-arpaio-but-whither-corzine/
Department Of Justice has been doing a lot of immunizing of late. There’s Lloyd Blankfein, who not only ripped off his clients with “one shitty deal,” he then lied to Congress about it.
http://www.emptywheel.net/2012/09/02/immunizing-crimes-blankstein-zirbel-and-arpaio-but-whither-corzine/
Zie: http://stanvanhoucke.blogspot.nl/search?q=obama+goldman+sachs
Duidelijk is dat het beleid van Obama gericht was op het redden van het neoliberalisme en niet op het redden van de arbeiders- en middenklasse. Dat kon ook niet anders aangezien zijn campagnekas gevuld werd door de rijken zoals uit het volgende staatje blijkt:
| University of California | $1,648,685 |
| Goldman Sachs | $1,013,091 |
| Harvard University | $878,164 |
| Microsoft Corp | $852,167 |
| Google Inc | $814,540 |
| JPMorgan Chase & Co | $808,799 |
| Citigroup Inc | $736,771 |
| Time Warner | $624,618 |
| Sidley Austin LLP | $600,298 |
| Stanford University | $595,716 |
| National Amusements Inc | $563,798 |
| WilmerHale LLP | $550,668 |
| Columbia University | $547,852 |
| Skadden, Arps et al | $543,539 |
| UBS AG | $532,674 |
| IBM Corp | $532,372 |
| General Electric | $529,855 |
| US Government | $513,308 |
| Morgan Stanley | $512,232 |
| Latham & Watkins | $503,295 |
In een spraakmakend artikel in Rolling Stone schrijft Matt Taibbi over Goldman Sachs:
"Het eerste dat u van Goldman Sachs moet weten, is dat ze overal zitten. De machtigste zakenbank ter wereld is een grote vampier die als een inktvis zijn tentakels over het hele gezicht van de mensheid heeft geslagen en meedogenloos het bloed opzuigt daar waar het naar geld ruikt."
http://stanvanhoucke.blogspot.nl/2009/11/ik-doe-gods-werk.html
Als er nu 1 ding is wat de neoliberale bankiers doen dan is het wel het vernietigen van wat Mak 'verworven rechten' noemt. De werkelijkheid is dat Obama een neoliberaal beleid voert waarbij de rijken nog rijker worden gemaakt in de verwachting dat dan de armen een graantje kunnen meepikken, een doctrine die failliet is, gezien de al vijf jaar durende economische depressie. Geert Mak en zijn instemmend knikkende deskundige tafelgenoten bij Pauw en Witteman verzwegen dit feit omdat het niet in het ideologisch raamwerk past die onze opiniemakers keer op keer propageren. Ik kom hier later op terug.
Op dit moment heeft Obama voor zijn huidige verkiezingscampagne 1 miljard dollar van de rijken gekregen. Desondanks beweert Mak dat Obama 'verworven rechten' van de armen verdedigt. Welke rechten vertelde hij er niet bij.
De Amerikaanse evolutionair bioloog Jared Diamond beschrijft in zijn boek'Collapse' nauwgezet hoe 'corruption, mismanagement, and political inertia by an elite, which is beyond the reach of the law, almost always result in widespread cynicism, disengagement, apathy, and finally rage. Those who suffer the consequences of this mismanagement lose any loyalty to the nation and increasingly nurse fantasies of violent revenge. The concept of the common good, mocked by the behaviour of the privileged classes, disappears. Nothing matters. It is only about ME.'
Maar ook dat was geen onderwerp van debat bij Pauw en Witteman. U weet nu waarom niet.
