Same watershed and very similar and complimentary organizations, Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay in my case. They probably don't spend 60% on fundraising, neither did the Clinton Foundation. I haven't looked at the books, but I would guess that they do spend 60% on running events to get people and organizations together who impact the Chesapeake Bay watershed through upstream runoff and work collaboratively to reduce that impact, that's pretty much their entire mission. I don't know the James River Association as well, but would guess they work on a very similar collaborative model with local businesses/leaders as well. My point being that setting up events to get business and community leaders together to accomplish a mission isn't at all uncommon among non-profits and can be a very beneficial model. It also happens to be one of the models of the Clinton Foundation. Judging those organizations as somehow corrupt or wasteful because they didn't spend all their money actually walking the beaches on the bay picking up garbage (in our case) or personally handing out food to starving children in Africa (Clinton Foundation case) isn't rational since that isn't their mission.
Be nice to hear that 60% shown or a recognition that the beliefs were founded in disinformation. Disinformation which has founded an entire belief system perhaps.
You've got a guy on here that when confronted with posting opposite and mutually exclusive assertions still refuses to admit he may have been wrong on one of them. Don't hold your breath, some beliefs are impervious to facts or reason. "Obama bad, Clinton bad" is apparently one of those foundations upon which they've built their psyche. Fascinating stuff to observe really.
Ok, I let you off easy before. But if you're going to press it, it's time for me to lay the hammer down. GS ran the place. Here's a list of former GS employees or those with GS affiliations in the Obama white house: Goldman Sachs Personnel in the Barack Obama White House Lael Brainard: Brainard is the United States Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs in the administration of Obama. Gregory Craig: Former White House Counsel, Recently hired by Goldman Sachs. Thomas Donilon: Deputy National Security Adviser (despite having a career that is mostly involved with domestic politics). Donilon was a lawyer at O’Melveny and Myers and made almost $4 million representing meltdown clients including Penny Pritzker (of Chicago) and Goldman Sachs. William C. Dudley: President and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, partner and managing director at Goldman Sachs and was the firm’s chief U.S. economist for a decade. Douglas Elmendorf: Obama Director of the Congressional Budget Office in January 2009, replaced Furman as Director of the Hamilton Project (Note that the Hamilton Project was funded by Robert Rubin and Goldman Sachs). Rahm Emanuel: Obama Chief of Staff, on the payroll of Goldman Sachs receiving $3,000 per month from the firm to “introduce us to people", in the words of one Goldman Sachs partner at the time. Dianna Farrell: Obama Administration: Deputy Director, National Economic Council. Former Goldman Sachs Title: Financial Analyst. Stephen Friedman: Obama Administration: Chairman, President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. Former Goldman Sachs Title: Board Member (Chairman 1990-94; Director 2005). Michael Frohman: Robert Rubin’s Chief of Staff while Rubin served as Secretary of the Treasury and an Obama “head hunter” according to “Rubin Proteges Change Their Tune as They Join Obama’s Team” in the New York Times. Anne Fudge: Appointed to Obama budget deficit reduction committee. Fudge has been the PR craftsman for some of America’s largest corporations. She sits, according to the Washington Post, as a Trustee of the Brookings Institution within which the Hamilton Project is embedded. Jason Furman: Directed economic policy for the Obama Presidential Campaign, served as the second Director of the Hamilton Project after Peter Orszag’s departure for the Obama administration. Mark Gallogly: Sits on the Hamilton Project’s advisory council. He is also, according to Wikipedia, currently a member of President Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board. . Gary Gensler: Obama Administration: Commissioner of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Former Goldman Sachs Title: Partner and Co-head of Finance. Michael Greenstone: The 4th Director of the Hamilton Project. Just as attorney Craig went from advising Obama to defending Goldman Sachs against the SEC complaint, Greenstone has used the revolving door to go from an Obama economic adviser position to one of the Goldman Sachs outlets - in this case its think tank embedded in the Brookings Institution and funded by Goldman Sachs and Robert Rubin. All 3 previous Directors of the Hamilton Project work in the Obama administration. Robert Hormats: Obama Administration: Undersecretary for Economic, Energy and Agricultural Affairs, State Department. Former Goldman Sachs Title: Vice Chairman, Goldman Sachs Group. Neel Kashkari: Served under Treasury Secretary Paulson (a former Goldman Sachs CEO) and was kept on by Obama after his inauguration for a limited period to work on TARP oversight. Former Vice President of Goldman Sachs in San Francisco where he led Goldman’s Information Technology Security Investment Banking practice. Karen Kornbluh: (Sometimes called "Obama’s brain") Obama Ambassador to the OECD. Was Deputy Chief of Staff to 'Mr. Goldman Sachs', Robert Rubin. Jacob "Jack" Lew: The United States Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources. According to Wikipedia, Lew sits on the Brookings-Rubin funded Hamilton Project Advisory Board. He also served with Robert Rubin in Bill Clinton’s cabinet as Director of OMB. David Lipton: Now on Obama’s National Economic Council and the National Security Council. Lipton worked with Larry Summers and Timothy Geithner on the US response to the Asian financial crisis of the 1990’s. MergeFoundations reports that Lipton worked closely with Robert Rubin. Emil Michael: White House Fellow. Former investment banker with Goldman Sachs. Eric Mindich: Former chief strategy officer of New York-based Goldman Sachs, started Eton Park in 2004 with $3.5 billion, at the time one of the biggest hedge-fund launches ever. .....Hank Paulson Tipped Off The Goldman-Led "Plunge Protection Team" About Fannie Bankruptcy 7 Weeks In Advance (2007): Goldman operative Eric Mindich in the hierarchy of the Asset Managers' committee of the President's Working Group on Capital Markets, better known of course as the PPT (in 2009). Philip Murphy: Obama Administration: Ambassador to Germany. Former Goldman Sachs Title: Head of Goldman Sachs, Frankfurt. Barack Obama: Obama owes his career to Goldman Sachs which was not only his biggest financial contributor when he ran for the Presidency, but was also his biggest contributor when he ran for the US Senate. Peter Orszag: Obama Budget Director. Founding director of the Hamilton Project, funded by Goldman Sachs and Robert Rubin. Wikipedia indicates that Robert Rubin, Goldman’s ex-CEO, was one of Orszag’s mentors. Mark Patterson: Obama Administration: Chief of Staff to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geitner. Former Goldman Sachs Title: Lobbyist 2005-2008; Vice President for Government Relations. Mark Peterson: Chief of staff to Timothy Geithner. Goldman Sachs Vice President and lobbyist. Steve Ratner: The shady billionaire financier who Obama appointed as his “car czar” and who resigned after it was revealed that his company, the Quadrangle Group, was apparently involved in “pay to play” for a billion dollars or so of New York State pension funds, and was under possible indictment by the New York AG and the SEC. Sits on the Advisory Council of the Goldman funded Hamilton Project. Robert Reischauer: A member of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission from 2000-2009 and was its Vice Chair from 2001-2008. He too sits on the Hamilton Project’s advisory board. Alice Rivlin: Obama named Alice Rivlin to his so-called Deficit Reduction Commission. James Rubin: Son of Robert Rubin. Served as a 'headhunter' for Obama per the New York Times article, "Rubin Proteges Change Their Tune as They Join Obama’s Team". Gene Sperling: Advisor to Timothy Geithner on bailouts. Sperling paid by Goldman Sachs for one year of consulting work. Adam Storch: Obama Managing Executive of the Security and Exchange Commission’s Division of Enforcement. Former Vice President in the Goldman Sachs Business Intelligence Group. Larry Summers: Obama chief economic adviser and head of the National Economic Counsel. Worked under Robert Rubin at Goldman Sachs. John Thain: Obama Administration: Advisor to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. Former Goldman Sachs Title: President and Chief Operating Officer (1999-2003) If that isn't GS running the place, I don't know what is. On to the second. Obama had working control over the banks "The Obama administration is pressuring banks that have received tarp funds to accept 15 cents on the dollar for some 7 billion in Chrysler bonds they own. It's estimated that the banks could get 30 to 50 cents on the dollar in a bankruptcy of the auto company. Now, why would the administration do this? The answer is to pay back their union buddies in the UAW. If the company enters bankruptcy, the union contracts will almost certainly be torn up, and Obama's supporters won't be happy goons and thugs. It's been reported that certain banks wanting to pay back their tarp funds have been denied that option by the administration. Not hard to connect the dots here. Obama wants to retain "working control" of the banks so as to use them as part of his efforts to socialize the economy and pay back his supporters. A billion or two of under the table money. Disgraceful." http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/o...ntial/Have-I-got-a-deal-for-you-43176797.html Maybe you could explain to me Sig how Obama was able to force those banks to accept a shitty deal unless he had a large measure of control over them. The quote from the examiner even explained exactly how he did it. By denying them the right to pay back their tarp loan, thereby giving him the control he desired. Obama's white house was run by GS. Check. Obama had working control over the banks. Check. As such, the banks made huge profits over the first two and a half years of his administration, (link provided earlier), and Obama directed some of it go to his union buddies in an outlandish power play. So, in fact, the assertions I made were not "opposite and mutually exclusive" at all. It just seems like it to a novice that is hell bent on trying to prove that his leftist worldview isn't just a giant ball of corruption. Now that that's settled, I'm going to enjoy reading a reply that attempts to shimmy and shake it's way out of this jam it's gotten itself into with it's fragile ego. Oh, and don't forget to include your explanation for the logical inconsistency that i asked you to explain and you promptly ignored. Which was just how the banks could hate Obama for Dodd Frank and simultaneously shower him with massive speaking fees after he left his term in orifice, during which time they had gigantic profits. Your explanation should be quite entertaining.
Nice list. Care to make the same list for every modern President? There are over 9,000 positions in the Plum Book, most of which are filled by several people over an 8 year term. Some fraction of a percent of them are always going to have worked in investment banking. If you made a list of former McKinsey employees you'd find the same thing. Or BCG employees. Or HBS grads. By your logic, then, Harvard ran the place. And McKinsey. And BCG. I'm not sure you realize it, but turns out you probably want someone with a working knowledge of finance in government finance positions! Like maybe the current Treasury Secretary and former GS C-level employee Steven Mnuchin. Or Jay Clayton, head of the SEC. Or Sean Memon his deputy. Or Gary Cohen. Or Eric Ueland. Hell, even Steven Bannon once worked for GS! GS still owns the white house, by your logic, or Trump just picked some people who knew a little bit about finance which probably necessitated that they worked a couple years in an investment bank, no? You do realize that if you "worked" at GS you no longer "work" there and as an appointee at least back when ethics mattered you would have had to divest yourself of any GS stock to take an appointment right? And speaking of questionable "logic", your entire premise is "Industry A made record profits under the first 2 years of Obama, therefore Obama was beholden to them." Guess who else made record profits during those 2 years. The gun industry. That proves it, the gun industry must be running the place! You may not see how absurd your premise is but everyone else does. Listen, I know quite a few people who work at GS, a bunch of my classmates went there directly after graduation, I've been to the little fortress in Battery Park a couple times. Never hear a lot of Obama fans among them. Certainly most would love to have the chance to hear him speak and interact with him, most of the people I associate don't hold bedrock hate of one or two individuals as a cornerstone of their belief system, even if they did disagree politically with much of what they did. Certainly heard a lot of bitching about how hostile the administration was to banking in general and GS in particular. Definitely didn't get the vibe that they thought they controlled anything in that administration. I forwarded your post to one and got a LOL in return, pretty sure you'd have an entire room laughing out loud at you if you trotted this out to them. But maybe that was just me. What's your experience talking with actual GS people, or ex GS people? Maybe we're just interacting with different groups there?
What I expected. All of Washington DC understands that personnel is policy, but it hasn't quite sunk in with you yet. One of the more famous articles of the entire obama administration: The Great American Bubble Machine - Rolling Stone www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-great-american-bubble-machine-20100405 Apr 5, 2010 - The world's most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel .. That article by Tiabbi captured the imagination of just about everyone who even thinks politics and wall street. Talked about relentlessly for months. The vampire squid. And you apparently missed it. Even the far left wing MotherJones publication admits that Obama packed his white house with former bankers, the leading being GS. The Bankers on Obama’s Team The latest round of Wall Street muckety-mucks now in charge of regulation. ANDY KROLLJANUARY/FEBRUARY 2010 ISSUE http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/12/henhouse-meet-fox-wall-street-washington-obama/ And lastly, but certainly not least, one of the largest sources of financial givers to Barry Obama was .....wait for it.....Goldman Sachs employees. They gave over four times as much to him as they did to John Mccain. Per this article. Goldman Sachs was top Obama donor From Robert Yoon, CNN Political Research Director April 20, 2010 5:50 p.m. EDT http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/04/20/obama.goldman.donations/index.html Now what kind of horseshit are you trying to sell on here about how they don't particularly like Obama at GS? Is that why they were his top donor? LOL If you have friends there, ask them to stop lying to you. You've been caught dead to rights and, not unexpectedly, you refuse to acquiesce. Mighty entertaining indeed from someone who just laid the charge at my feet that "some beliefs are impervious to facts or reason". It seems that its your beliefs that are impervious to reason. Not mine.