James Pinkerton, an advisor to presidents REAGAN and BUSH (and thus presumably a pro-business Republican who is against 'excessive' government regulation of business)- compares President Barack Obama's reliance on his GOLDMAN-SACHS BANKERS "economic" team - to the administration of PRESIDENT GRANT, which is to say, the administration which is now considered SYNONYMOUS with CORUPTION and financially corrupt advisors and cabinent members.
Heck EVEN the WALL STREET JOURNAL notices the unseemly connection: the CHAIRMAN of the NY Fed Bank (Tim Geithner's replacement) - SITS ON THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS of GOLDMAN SACHS !!!!
NOTE: BOTH USNWR (US News & World Report magazine) AND the Murdoch-owned Wall St. Journal, are extremely PRO-BUSINESS, pro- "deregulation" conservative media outlets - but when, at four months, they are comparing the OBAMA administration to the GRANT administration, that is remembered (not for its many accomplishments, but for) CORRUPTION - that is saying
- "President Obama, You'd better WAKE UP, SMELL THE COFFEE, and FIRE your GOLDMAN-SACHS BANKSTERS" before they RUIN your presidency and drag you down in history for the next 150 years" !!
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Obama's 100 Days: Wall Street Crowd Makes His Administration Like Grant's
By James P. Pinkerton
Posted April 30, 2009
http://www.usnews.com/articles/opinion/2009/04/30/obamas-100-days-wall-street-crowd-makes-his-administration-like-grants.html
(James P. Pinkerton served in the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush White Houses, is a fellow at the New America Foundation and is a frequent contributor on Fox News.) (!!)
President Obama might be modeling his presidency after Franklin D. Roosevelt's. In hard times, most Democrats think fondly of the New Deal — certainly Obama's media fans are making the connection — but thus far, he is shaping up less like the 32nd president and more like the 18th, Ulysses S. Grant.
Little that we have seen in his first 100 days suggests that the 44th president sees THE DANGER of OVER-RELIANCE on HIGH-FINANCE. Yet in the Grant administration it was wheeling, dealing, and OUTRIGHT CORRUPTION that plagued the nation and besmirched the incumbent. And now that trillions are sloshing up and down K Street, the same muckraked fate looms for the Obama administration.
[Actually, the "CORRUPTION" of the Grant Administration was relative: compared to the devastation of the Civil War, America was AT PEACE, and REBUILDING instead of destroying; and Grant's administration made huge progress in PAYING DOWN the VAST Civil War DEBTS. And prior to Grant's term, the entire South had practiced a far larger, more SYSTEMATIC FORM OF CORRUPTION: CHATTEL SLAVERY, stealing the labor (and family) of one man, to the exlusive benefit of others. However, despite our "freedom" and "democracy" rhetoric, we Americans seldom look at Slavery as "a form of corruption," while our history books - many written or influenced by defeated Southern historians who despised Grant and Lincoln, and wrote relentlessly critical Revisionist History - relentlessly focus on the financial scandals whirling around Grant - a "revisionist history" that also helped to put the Reconstruction Era which Grant championed in a bad or even horrific light.]
After being inaugurated in 1933, Roosevelt proclaimed, "The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization." This wasn't just aspirational rhetoric; it was directional policy. So he closed the banks, temporarily, and drafted legislation that led to major changes in the regulation of not only banks but also of stock brokerages and utilities. Indeed, all of corporate America was transformed. In his inaugural address, Obama attacked "greed and irresponsibility," adding that sometimes "the market can spin out of control." BUT few will remember those words, because it's unlikely that anyone will remember Obama as a financial reformer.
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New York Fed Chairman's Ties to Goldman Raise Questions
The Wall St. Journal - USA Inc. The State of Capitalism
MAY 4, 2009
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124139546243981801.html
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York shaped Washington's response to the financial crisis late last year, which buoyed Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and other Wall Street firms. Goldman received speedy approval to become a bank holding company in September and a $10 billion capital injection soon after.
During that time, the New York Fed's chairman, Stephen Friedman, sat on Goldman's board and had a large holding in Goldman stock, which because of Goldman's new status as a bank holding company was a violation of Federal Reserve policy....
(continued at the Murdoch-owned WSJ, subscription required)
