Why does the criminal banker Larry Summers continue to command a global forum?

probably because the venue is the financial times, the newspaper of the 0.0001%...

The US tax system needs rebuilding

By Lawrence Summers

i won't even bother posting snippets from the above article... suffice it to say, summers starts out by sounding the alarm about "entitlements," social security, medicare, etc., and then goes on to suggest the plenary solution to everything that ails us is to revisit the catfood commission (simpson-bowles)...

however, the most galling piece of information to come my way this past week is that summers' name is actually being floated by obama as a replacement for zoellick at the world bank... fuck... what do we have to do to get rid of these dangerously evil people...?

Larry Summers To Run World Bank? 37,000 Sign Petition Saying No In 24 Hours

anybody who's got two brain cells to rub together should be putting his or her name on that petition... you can do it here...

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Is the World Bank's Zoellick sending us a signal when he's talking about returning to the gold standard?

i guess it remains to be seen, eh...?

World Bank president calls for debate on global gold standard

Robert Zoellick, president of the World Bank, shook up the world of international finance and central banking on Monday when he called for consideration of tying currency values to the global trade of gold, in hopes of producing more stable economies.

Basically, he called for the G20 to discuss establishing a global gold standard as part of an ongoing refashioning of financial markets -- and his remarks sent prices of the shiny metal soaring.

Gold, he wrote in an editorial published by The Financial Times, could be "employed as an international reference point of market expectations about inflation, deflation and future currency values. Although textbooks may view gold as the old money, markets are using gold as an alternative monetary asset today."

Zoellick said the modified gold standard could play a key role in the third reformatting of the global monetary systems since World War II and the Bretton Woods Agreement.

to say that zoellick "shook up the world of international finance" is probably a massive understatement... guys in zoellick's position don't go around dropping this kind of bombshell without a great deal of preparation and clearance from the "bigs" behind the scenes...

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Goldman Sachs and its alumni - the people who own us

despite the on-going train wreck in the world credit markets, goldman sachs continues to scoop up massive amounts of cash... just look at this...

[F]or Goldman’s chief executive, Lloyd C. Blankfein, this is turning out to be a very good year. He will surely earn more than the $54.3 million he made last year. If he gets a 20 percent raise — in line with the growth of Goldman’s compensation pool — he will take home at least $65 million. Some expect his pay, which is directly tied to the firm’s performance, to climb as high as $75 million.

[...]

Goldman’s stock has significantly outperformed its peers. At the end of last week it was up about 13 percent for the year, compared with a drop of almost 14 percent for the XBD, the broker-dealer index that includes the leading Wall Street banks. Merrill Lynch, Bear Stearns and Citigroup are down almost 40 percent this year.

besides blankfein, somebody whose name is unfamiliar to me, but who could still earn a possible SEVENTY FIVE MILLION FRIGGIN' GODDAM DOLLARS THIS YEAR, who the hell ARE the people this world-class money vacuum cleaner has spawned...? well, just look at THIS list...

Last week, John A. Thain, a former Goldman co-president, accepted the top position at Merrill Lynch, while a fellow Goldman alumnus, Duncan L. Niederauer, took Mr. Thain’s job running the New York Stock Exchange. Another fellow veteran trader, Daniel Och, took his $30 billion hedge fund public.

still unfamiliar names to me... but, wait... there's MORE...

Robert E. Rubin, a former Goldman head, is the new chairman of Citigroup. In Washington, another former chief, Henry M. Paulson Jr., is the Treasury secretary, having been recruited by Joshua B. Bolten, the White House chief of staff and yet another former Goldman executive.

The heads of the Canadian and Italian central banks are Goldman alumni. The World Bank president, Robert B. Zoellick, is another. Jon S. Corzine, once a co-chairman, is the governor of New Jersey. And in academia, Robert S. Kaplan, a former vice chairman, has just been picked as the interim head of Harvard University’s $35 billion endowment.

ah... NOW, we're gettin' down to it... are ya gettin' the picture here...? THESE, my friends, are the folks who OWN us, lock, stock, and barrel... they are also the ones who are calling the shots, these and their buddies at the council on foreign relations, the center for strategic and international studies, the center for a new american security, and, of course, let we forget, those at the carnegie endowment, the ford and guggenheim foundations that mettle helped us learn more about earlier today... keep 'em in mind, cuz what they say and do ends up being the way things will eventually come down...

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Zoellick nominated to replace Wolfie

at least robert zoellick has credentials that won't send the bank member nations, particularly the european ones, into a hissy fit, altho' i suspect they're not going to be happy that bush has nominated another administration insider, even if he happens to be a former, slightly disaffected one...

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Rats that leave the sinking ship first are usually the best swimmers

sure enough, there's more... add dina habib powell to zoellick, tobias, zelikow, krasner, bolton, joseph, and lowenkron...

damn...! they can't get away from condi fast enough... you better not be standing near the door, you'll get trampled in the rush...

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice lost yet another senior aide on Wednesday when Dina Habib Powell, the highest-ranking Arab-American in the US government, announced her resignation to join a Wall Street investment bank.

The departure of Powell, key architect of a Rice initiative to improve the United States' image abroad, was the third senior diplomat to quit in the past five days and the sixth so far this year -- an exodus that is expected to continue in the final 20 months of the Bush administration.

as i posted on monday, here's what they would LIKE you to think...

"It's only natural as you get towards the end of the second term that people are going to be moving on," [a senior State Department official] said. "The secretary understands."

it's a proven fact... the rats that leave the sinking ship first are usually the best swimmers...

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What do Zoellick, Tobias, Zelikow, Krasner, Bolton, Joseph, and Lowenkron all have in common?

they all worked for condi and they've all left the state department since january... but, not to worry...

A senior State Department official indicated that the spate of resignations could continue as Bush nears the end of his mandate in January 2009.

"It's only natural as you get towards the end of the second term that people are going to be moving on," he said. "The secretary understands."

translation: yes, we know it's a shitload of senior people, and, yes, we know some of the circumstances surrounding their departures are questionable, but, hey, it's all to be expected, dontcha know, and, oh, btw, don't be surprised if there are more, maybe even a LOT more...

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