By Shah Gilani
Contributing Editor
Money Morning
Not a fan of socialism? Me either. But, if the federal government has to backstop free market excesses with taxpayer dollars, how will it eventually unravel the veil, or tarp of intervention? Or should it? The answers are about to unfold before our eyes.
In the case of the government and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), a decision on whether Goldman can repay government bailout money and be freed to pay its employees whatever it wants, may determine the winners and losers coming out of this financial collapse, and what kind of government Americans will end up with.In her extraordinary 1999 book, “Goldman Sachs the Culture of Success,” Lisa Endlich vividly chronicles the “history, mystique and remarkable success of the world’s premier investment bank.” That same year, the storied partnership structure of Goldman was junked in a wildly successful initial public offering (IPO).
I still keep three pages of notes distilled from Endlich’s book on how to create and foster a culture of success, a la the Goldman model. They now seem quaint in light of the winner-take-all at the expense of the shareholders mentality that eviscerated the old-school standards.
March 20, 2009
Investment Could Lead to Thousands of New Jobs
Washington, DC – Energy Secretary Steven Chu today offered a $535 million loan guarantee for Solyndra, Inc. to support the company’s construction of a commercial-scale manufacturing plant for its proprietary cylindrical solar photovoltaic panels. The company expects to create thousands of new jobs in the U.S. while deploying its solar panels across the U.S. and around the world.
“This investment is part of President Obama’s aggressive strategy to put Americans back to work and reduce our dependence on foreign oil by developing clean, renewable sources of energy,” Secretary Chu said. “We can create millions of new, good paying jobs that can’t be outsourced. Instead of relying on imports from other countries to meet our energy needs, we’ll rely on America’s innovation, America’s resources, and America’s workers.”
Secretary Chu is moving aggressively to accelerate important Department of Energy investments that can create jobs and transform the way America uses and produces energy. This allows the Department of Energy to offer its first loan guarantee within the first two months of the Obama Administration. This loan guarantee will be supported through the President’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which provides tens of billions of dollars in loan guarantee authority to build a new green energy economy.
Mark Levin: You Won’t Believe Brignell’s List of Global Warming Effects
By Tim Graham (Bio | Archive)
April 12, 2009 – 20:35 ET
Mark Levin’s red-hot new book Liberty and Tyranny has an amazing list of media alarmism in the chapter on “Enviro-Statism.” Levin says Dr. John Brignell, a retired professor of industrial instrumentation at the University of Southampton in Britain, compiled a list of alarmist claims in news reports that man-made global warming has caused or will cause. Take a breath and peek. (The paragraph breaks are mine.)
By Tom Burghardt
Global Research, April 13, 2009
Antifascist Calling…
Since fatuously declaring his to be a “change” administration, President Barack Obama has quickly donned the blood-spattered mantle of state secrecy and executive privilege worn by the Bush regime.
On Friday April 3, the Department of Justice filed a motion to dismiss one of the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s (EFF) landmark lawsuits against illegal spying by the National Security Agency (NSA).
That suit, Jewell v. NSA, was filed last September against the NSA, NSA Director Keith B. Alexander, President George W. Bush, Vice President Richard Cheney, U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey and Mike McConnell, Director of National Intelligence. But with the departure of the Bush gang, the defendants now include President Barack Obama, NSA Director Keith B. Alexander, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Dennis C. Blair, Director of National Intelligence.
By José Miguel Alonso Trabanco
Global Research, April 11, 2009
“A lot of what we [National Endowment for Democracy] do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.” -Allen Weinstein
It seems that those who anticipated the end of color revolutions have been proven wrong. So far, color revolutions have succeeded in Serbia, Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan. On the other hand, they have failed in Belarus, Uzbekistan and Myanmar. Their common denominator is a wave of protests and sometimes riots whose purpose is to overthrow a local government, often held during electoral times or shortly afterwards. It has not gone unnoticed that the so called color revolutions have been backed (and engineered?) by enthusiastic western supporters including NGO’s, diplomats, businessmen, governmental institutions and heads of state. In those countries where such political mobilizations have prevailed, pro-Western leaders have been enthroned as a result thereof. If one pays close attention to a map, it is impossible not to wonder if it is simply a coincidence that color revolutions have erupted in countries close to Russian and Chinese borders. It has to be pointed out that no color revolution has ever occurred in any country whose government is staunchly pro-Western.
By Carolyn Duffy Marsan
April 09, 2009 — Network World — Having trouble convincing your boss that Twitter isn’t a waste of time? Then you might find it interesting to learn that social media evangelists across the U.S. federal government are blasting out Tweets several times a day to their constituents. Here are their suggestions for how to integrate new media tools such as Twitter, Facebook and Flickr into a large, old-fashioned bureaucracy:
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BY: DR.Benevolence
The “Government Sachs” article[http://bit.ly/sm3l] deserves careful contemplation. Goldman Sachs was able to leverage its bailout by shrewdly calculating that laissez-faire regulation had made it possible for AIG executives to bet the solvency of the American system – a solvency that the U.S. government would find necessary to defend at taxpayer expense. Hence, the Goldman Sachs bet against AIG was actually a bet against the American taxpayer.
A man walked into the ruins of L’Aquila on Monday morning. More Photos >
By RACHEL DONADIO
Published: April 6, 2009
The Italian news agency, ANSA, quoted rescue workers in mid-afternoon as saying the death toll had reached 92. A spokesman for Italy’s Civil Protection Agency said on national television that an estimated 40,000 to 50,000 people had been left homeless.
The epicenter was in L’Aquila, a picturesque Medieval fortress hill town, where most of the deaths occurred, officials said. Aftershocks shuddered through the area, hampering rescue efforts as people clawed through the debris by hand, frantically seeking survivors.
“Some towns in the area have been virtually destroyed in their entirety,” Gianfranco Fini, speaker of the lower house of Parliament, said in Rome before the chamber observed a moment of silence.
ANSA reported that President Obama, visiting Turkey on an eight-day overseas tour, offered his condolences to Italian families hit by the quake.
The situation is “extremely critical, as many buildings have collapsed,” Luca Spoletini, a spokesman for the civil protection agency, told ANSA shortly after the quake struck. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi canceled a trip to Moscow and declared a state of emergency in the region.
Reports from the areas said that at least 26 towns had been affected by the earthquake. Four children died in the hospital after their house collapsed, ANSA reported. A fifth child died in the village of Fossa, eight miles from L’Aquila.
The quake struck around 3:30 a.m. and could be felt as far away as Rome, some 95 miles to the west, where it rattled furniture and set off car alarms.
Part of a student dormitory, a church tower and other historic buildings collapsed in L’Aquila, and the town’s cathedral was damaged.
Rachel Donadio reported from L’Aquila and Elisabetta Povoledo from Rome. Leanne Kilroy contributed reporting from L’Aquila
The epicenter was in L’Aquila, a picturesque Medieval fortress hill town, where most of the deaths occurred, officials said. Aftershocks shuddered through the area, hampering rescue efforts as people clawed through the debris by hand, frantically seeking survivors.
“Some towns in the area have been virtually destroyed in their entirety,” Gianfranco Fini, speaker of the lower house of Parliament, said in Rome before the chamber observed a moment of silence.
cont…http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/07/world/europe/07italy.html?_r=1&hp
