online.wsj.com — The Federal Reserve Bank of New York shaped Washington's response to the financial crisis late last year buoyed Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Then Goldman received a $10 billion capital injection soon after.The NY Fed's chairman, Stephen Friedman, sat on Goldman's board and had a large holding in Goldman stock, in violation of Fed policy and the law
May 4, 2009 View in Crawl 4
crheinMay 5, 2009
Would you prefer CONGRESS to control monetary policy? Having governors who are economists and appointed by the president seems a much better method than people untrained in economics.
conspiracyofoneMay 5, 2009
FTA:****Jerry Jordan, a former president of the Fed bank in Cleveland, says Mr. Friedman should have stepped down once Goldman became a bank holding company in September and thus fell under the Fed policy barring stock ownership by certain directors of Fed banks. "Any kind of financial transaction at all by any of the directors is always a problem," Mr. Jordan said. "He should have resigned."New York Fed officials disagree. Last fall, then-New York Fed President Timothy Geithner was President-elect Barack Obama's choice to head the Treasury, and New York Fed officials say that to have forced Mr. Friedman off the board while it sought a Geithner successor would have deprived it of two leaders at a crucial time."Steve Friedman is a very capable chairman," said Tom Baxter, the New York Fed's general counsel, "and was the kind of person who we needed to head the search" for someone to succeed Mr. Geithner."****So the response to the fact that there was a conflict of interest is that Friedman is a very capable chairman??? I don't give a flying f**k if he is the most capable economist/chairman/juggler in the world. Conflict of interest. Period. Best way to deal with temptation is to eliminate it.
whiledoMay 5, 2009
Wow, you guys are beginning to south as bad as the truthers (re: vbullinger's post).Know who else was a politician vocally against other versions of central banks before the Fed existed? Jefferson. Oh wait, nobody shot him so we'll just ignore it. Know who WAS for central banks? Hamilton. Somebody shot him? Oh wait, we'll just ignore that datapoint, too. How did Martin Luther King feel about the Fed? No? Oh well, just toss him out. Eleven OTHER presidents have had assassination attempts? Ignore that, too. Lincoln was president during a civil war, when half the country would have wanted him dead? Don't bother thinking about that one, either.This cherrypicking is ridiculous, even if I grant your claims about all four's stances on the Fed (or how applicable other central banks are to the topic of the Fed).
caferrellMay 5, 2009Submitter
You are right. I am sorry.That was thoughtless and I wrote that quickly just to make a comment that shows the absurdity of a system in which people shift back and forth between the government that regulates the banks and the banks that are regulated.
jlaughMay 6, 2009
@odigityEver here of the Pinkertons? The Railroad barons used to hire them to massacre homesteaders and anyone else who got in their way. They had a free hand because there wasn't much government to speak of out west. Only in area's with a strong militia could the average farmer defend himself against the out of control wealthy.
dskaugrudMay 7, 2009
Watch George Carlin-<a class="user" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acLW1vFO-2Q&amp;feature=PlayList&amp;p=BAAB170B3A89DDF7&amp;playnext=1&amp;playnext_from=PL&amp;index=26">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acLW1vFO-2Q&amp;fea ...</a>That pretty much says it all-
bille3Jul 3, 2009
Keith Olbermann is the leader of the DNC.
bille3Jul 3, 2009
He can't they are his handlers. Like so many other politicians and judges.