Bizarre, Media, Politics, Society

“Amen Sister”: Gillibrand Declares “The Lehman Sisters” Might Have Prevented 2008 Financial Collapse

440px-Kirsten_Gillibrand,_official_portrait,_112th_CongressNew York Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand told a supportive audience at the progressive Center for American Progress Ideas Festival that gender alone could make a difference in finance crises: “If it wasn’t Lehman Brothers but Lehman Sisters, we might not have had the financial collapse.”  The problem, critics have noted, is that Lehman Brothers had a female CFO during the financial crisis.  The bigger problem is how gender is often presented as a de facto credential by politicians and activists without acknowledging that it would also be de facto discrimination if used in this fashion.  It is an interesting story coming on the heels of the story out of the University of Akron where a professor declared female students would be automatically given higher scores. Gillibrand’s comment comes when she is pushing for new sexual harassment legislation in Congress.

Gillibrand insisted that “all these different life experiences” including those of women of color bring “this host of experiences that are different that will make not only the problem-solving better, because it will identify different problems, but then it will identify different solutions.”  There is no question that life experiences can give leaders different insights and ideas.  However, the sweeping claim that gender could make some business people superior to others in areas like finance raise troubling reminders of our long history of sexism and discrimination.  Is the suggestion that financial leaders should be selected in part due to their gender?  If so, we have struggled to end a long history of such assumptions.

That point was missed by fellow former Hillary Clinton campaign communications director Jennifer Palmieri who could be heard explaining “Amen, sister.”  Palmieri’s involvement was interesting since she was the recipient of the improperly released debate questions from Donna Brazile for Hillary Clinton.  Brazile denied that she sent the information to Palmieri for months (and there was no disclosure of Palmieri to the contrary during the campaign). It only came out later that Palmieri did indeed receive the information.  That was a female campaign aide who received material from a female commentator and DNC official working on behalf of a female candidate. It resulted in a long-simmering scandal of favoritism and false denials.  Gender did not seem give added insight during that controversy.

Gillbrand’s comment is not original. In 2010, International Monetary Fund managing director Christine Lagarde said “if Lehman Brothers had been ‘Lehman Sisters,’ today’s economic crisis clearly would look quite different.” Notably, Lagarde was found guilty a few years ago (though not hit with penalties) for her role in the questionable €403 million arbitration deal in favor of businessman Bernard Tapie.  That must have been the result of Tapie’s gender.

Just recently, Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of Theranos, was charged with “massive fraud” after being celebrated as the model of women in the workplace.  Does that mean women should not be in the workplace or in business leadership? Of course not. The fact that she is a women had no bearing on her allegedly fraudulent practices any more than being a women gave her an inherent superiority as a CEO.

The concern is that leaders are increasingly pitching notions that gender can make you a better leader in various fields — a position that was opposed through the 1970s in the long struggle against sexual discrimination.  Back then, it was men saying “Amen” to claims that men were inherently better suited to deal with government or business or other challenges.  Men often insisted that the male gender bestowed greater toughness, understanding, and competitiveness in leaders.  To suggest that a female might have avoided a financial crisis appeals to the same notions of inherent gender superiority or suitability that plagued our nation for far too long in our history.

What do you think?

126 thoughts on ““Amen Sister”: Gillibrand Declares “The Lehman Sisters” Might Have Prevented 2008 Financial Collapse”

  1. Hey Nutchacha,

    You crashed many posts on JT’s blog today. You’re the top poster here today. Are you a sock puppet & a Russian troll? And you still consistently attacked the posters on JT’s blog. I’m watching your posts. You have attacked everything someone said on JT’s blog, except for yourself.

    6. Henry Paulson

    His time at Goldman Sachs made Henry Paulson one of the richest men in the world. Under Paulson’s leadership, Goldman transformed from a private company ruled by client relationships into a public company operating as a giant global casino. As Treasury Secretary during the height of the financial crisis, Paulson personally approved a direct $10 billion capital injection into his former firm.

    But even before that bailout, Paulson had been playing fast and loose with ethics rules. In June 2008, Paulson held a secret meeting in Moscow with Goldman’s board of directors, where they discussed economic prognostications, market conditions and Treasury rescue plans. Not okay, Hank.

    1. Nutchacha has carefully crafted the image of a dispassionate cynic. What he, or she, really stands for is nobody’s business.

      1. I’m about as stealthy as a steam calliope. If you can’t figure out what I stand for, it’s because you can’t think out of the litter box you’ve climbed into.

      1. Aw, the old ‘defeat the argument on one detail tactic’.

        Nevertheless, DSS, Paulson came through quite well and unscathed, which I think is the point being made.

  3. Gender and race are not credentials unless the subject is trying out for a specific acting role. Otherwise, it is a discriminatory qualification.

    Students at Akron should sue the school for gender discrimination. It is beyond the pale to punish students who do not have the “right” gender or skin color. Democrats are bringing back Jim Crow. For shame.

  4. OT:

    U.S. NAVY RESERVE DOCTOR ON GINA HASPEL TORTURE VICTIM: “ONE OF THE MOST SEVERELY TRAUMATIZED INDIVIDUALS I HAVE EVER SEEN”

    by Jeremy Scahill

    May 17 2018, 10:28 a.m.

    https://theintercept.com/2018/05/17/gina-haspel-cia-director-torture/

    “AN AMERICAN DOCTOR and Naval reserve officer who has done extensive medical evaluation of a high-profile prisoner who was tortured under the supervision of Gina Haspel privately urged Sen. Mark Warner, the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, to oppose Haspel’s confirmation as CIA director, according to an email obtained by The Intercept.

    ““I have evaluated Mr. Abdal Rahim al-Nashiri, as well as close to 20 other men who were tortured as part of the CIA’s RDI [Rendition, Detention, and Interrogation] program. I am one of the only health professionals he has ever talked to about his torture, its effects, and his ongoing suffering,” Dr. Sondra Crosby, a professor of public health at Boston University, wrote to Warner’s legislative director on Monday. “He is irreversibly damaged by torture that was unusually cruel and designed to break him. In my over 20 years of experience treating torture victims from around the world, including Syria, Iraq, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mr. al-Nashiri presents as one of the most severely traumatized individuals I have ever seen.””

      1. Don’t you mean, in this case, ‘whom’, braniac?

        The primary source is Dr. Sondra Crosby, as stated, given that she is still alive. The secondary source is the Intercept (unless they are quoting the secondary source).

        You don’t even offer tertiary sources for your mutterings, DSS.

        Argue the issue, not the semantics — lest you become Allan.

  5. it may be a small step from blaming lehman bros on men to blaming lehman bros on…. jewish kingpins… goldman sachs…. etc.

    not sure Ms Gillibrand would take that step but it’s only a small leap of information and at least as well supported by the factual profiles of the principles as the antimale rhetoric is

    1. Goldman Sachs wasn’t a particularly troubled firm and both Goldman and Morgan Stanley were able to attract private financing in late 2008 / early 2009 (from Berkshire Hathaway and Nomura, respectively). Merrill Lynch, Wachovia, Countrywide, and Washington Mutual were all run by gentiles. The chief executives of AIG in its terminal phase were both gentiles as well.

  6. What nonsense! Lehman Brothers was run by Richard Fuld, not the CFO. Fuld was Chairman and CEO of Lehman. The Banking Establishment well knew that the Lehman crisis was just the BEGINNING of the financial crisis because ALL of the major banks were involved in PERPETRATING the financial crisis through their leveraging schemes. But they needed Lehman as the sacrificial lamb–even though it would be the largest bankruptcy in US history–because without it, the banks would have much more difficulty convincing everyone that a huge bailout of the financial industry was absolutely required. A number of major banks, including Barclays and Bank of America were among those who declined to help rescue Lehman. And once Lehman crashed, then the real financial crisis could get into full swing, proving profitable for all the big banks that control the Federal Reserve, including Chase, Bank of America, Citi, and so forth.

    What nobody likes to talk about was that the entire financial crisis was a PLANNED event that the big banks wanted all along (just like it was “Barzani all along”). Here’s one clue to cut to the Chase (no pun intended). The big banks told George W. Bush that they wanted Ben Bernanke to succeed Alan Greenspan after the end of Greenspan’s turn. So, on February 1, 2006, Bernanke assumed chairmanship of the Fed–well before the beginning of the actual financial crisis. In fact, 2006 was considered to be rosy times in virtually all economic sectors.

    So, ask yourself, “Why did the big banks want Ben Bernanke in charge of the Fed at this particular time?” The answer? Ben Bernanke was an EXPERT in financial crises. He authored, for example, “Nonmonetary Effects of the Financial Crisis in the Propagation of the Great Depression,” The American Economic Review, Vol. 73, No. 3 (Jun., 1983), pp. 257-276. One of his first speeches as a Fed Governor–before being appointed to the Fed Chair, was entitled “Deflation: Making Sure It Doesn’t Happen Here.” This became known as the Bernanke Doctrine.

    So, was it a wild coincidence that the banking industry would tell then President Bush that they wanted Ben Bernanke–the leading expert on financial crises, deflation, and market crashes in the banking community–to head the Fed just a year before the financial crisis would actually begin to be seen?

    1. What nobody likes to talk about was that the entire financial crisis was a PLANNED event

      They don’t like to talk that way because it’s kookery.

      1. So, in your mind, bringing in the leading expert on financial crises to head the Fed a year before the actual financial crisis was a wild coincidence? And it’s also a wild coincidence that the banks changed the rules so that they could leverage to the max? And it’s just a wild coincidence that the banks continued to fuel the housing price boom by flooding the market with loans to unqualified applicants? And it’s just still another wild coincidence that the big banks then bundled all those lousy, worthless loans into big derivative instruments which the bankers themselves referred to privately as “gold plated turds?” And it’s just still another wild coincidence that after the financial crisis went into full swing, all of the big bankers became wealthier and more powerful than ever?

        If there are any kooks here, it is those who believe in an endless stream of wild coincidences in the face of facts demonstrating otherwise.

        1. So, in your mind, bringing in the leading expert on financial crises to head the Fed a year before the actual financial crisis was a wild coincidence?

          Dr. Bernanke had been on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors for several years at that point; there’s nothing unremarkable about a Fed Governor being promoted to the chairman’s position. The current Fed Chair, his predecessor Dr. Yellen, and Paul Volcker were all internal promotions.. Alan Greenspan’s term on the Board of Governors came to it’s statutory conclusion in 2006. He was 80 years old and had been on the board for 18 years, so there was nothing out of the ordinary about his departure. His appointment as chairman had been renewed in 2005, but holding that office is contingent upon being on the board and his term on the board had expired.

          And it’s also a wild coincidence that the banks changed the rules so that they could leverage to the max?

          Public agencies (and on occasion parastatal authorities) make those rules, not ‘the banks’. IIRC, Citigroup was sorely leveraged. Don’t believe that was the case for B o A, JP Morgan, or Wells-Fargo. IIRC, Wachovia’s problem was not leverage but the quality of its loan portfolio. We can check. Some of the securities firms were severely leveraged. Not sure what SEC rules allowed them to do prior to 1999. Bear Stearns was absorbed by JP Morgan, Lehman landed in bankruptcy court, Merrill Lynch was absorbed by B o A,

          You seem to fancy that SEC rules changes were undertaken to promote failure among securities firms. That is bizarre.

          And it’s just a wild coincidence that the banks continued to fuel the housing price boom by flooding the market with loans to unqualified applicants?

          Subprime and Alt-A lending amounted to about 16% of outstanding mortgage debt at the end of 2008. The effect of this subsector on prices was circumscribed. The inflating properties were sold to prime borrowers, by and large. AFAIK, Washington Mutual and Countrywide were the only consequential institutions which continued lending to subprime borrowers after 2005. Alt-A lending was largely discontinued after 2008.

        2. hen bundled all those lousy, worthless loans into big derivative instruments which the bankers themselves referred to privately as “gold plated turds?”

          Again, the secondary mortgage market was and is dominated by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They vend mortgage-backed securites which various parties buy. Commercial banks generally hold about 10% of their assets in the form of mortgage-backed securities. These are not derivatives. IIRC, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac issues were trading at about 78 c on the dollar at the height of the crisis.

        3. Nut case, you’ve not disputed a single fact I’ve stated, and your only “argument” is that the SEC is somehow just a government bureaucracy that is not beholden to anyone. But the fact remains that all of the members of the SEC that let banks overleverage were in the pockets of the big bankers and investment bankers (soon to be officially bankers). Chris Cox, who headed the SEC at the time the rules were slacked to permit the overleveraging has LONG been a pawn in the big bankers’ war chest. At the time of his appointment to the SEC, even the lefty Washington Post wrote, “His reputation [Cox’s reputation] as a deregulator and his record on corporate governance raise doubts about the SEC’s direction” to protect the public’s interest. This was merely a fancy way of stating that Cox would do whatever the banking and corporate interests wanted, regardless of the consequences to the public.

          But you needn’t respond further. You’re a believer in wild coincidence after wild coincidence and say “let the facts be damned.” I’ve got your number.

          1. We’ll talk when you can distinguish ‘facts’ from ‘insinuations’

  8. THE WAR ON REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS..

    AND OPPOSITION TO GUN CONTROL..

    REFLECT MALE DOMINATION OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY

    If roughly half the members of Congress were women, reproductive rights would be considered ‘rights’! Anti-abortion legislation would never come up for votes. The same would be true in most state legislatures.

    If roughly half the members of Congress were women, the regulation of firearms would be considered commons sense. I don’t believe, for a moment, that women would turn their backs on regulation and pretend mass shootings are normal.

    I also wonder if opposition to Obamacare would be anywhere near as intense if men didn’t dominate the Republican party. Women arguably have greater healthcare needs than men. Would they promote legislation allowing employers to deny birth control in company insurance plans..?? I don’t think so!!

    The fact is that male domination of the Republican party promotes a number of really stupid policies.

    1. Women are usually the primary caregivers in their families when there is illness, disability, or the usual health maintenance issues as well as birthing all the babies. And because we outlive men by many years, far more women care for sick and dying husbands than the reverse. Women also do more of the care of aging parents in their families. If women were the majority legislators, yes, we would have a far more functional, equitable, and common sense health care system. I believe we would, at a minimum, have universal health care regardless of how that was achieved.

      I have no idea if her comment about Lehman is correct or not.

      1. loverly:

        Compassion is fine. It’s just bad domestic and foreign policy. When the rapist has the knife at your throat or the enemy is massed at the border, caregiving helps you not at all. Men have a function and so do women but self-defense is job one for the Y chromosome.

        1. There is no way to compassionately respond to your comment so I will refrain.

          1. Loverly, you could correct your outdated claim:

            “Women are usually the primary caregivers in their families when there is illness, disability, or the usual health maintenance issues as well as birthing all the babies”

            That is so 1950s.

            Women stopped being maternal decades ago. Americans are the primary caregivers today via Medicare and Medicaid.
            Ah, the compassionate US health care system.

            1. Medicare finances hospital stays, discrete rehabilitation courses, clinic visits, and prescription drugs (for the elderly and adjudicated disabled). It does not provide daily care for anyone outside of those circumscribed settings. Medicaid finances nursing home care. I think in some loci it finances other sorts of custodial care. In this, it replaced state asylums, which had an enormous census in 1955 and today enroll 1/10th the population they once did.

              A set of my great-grandparents lived with my grand-parents 9 months of the year and my great-uncle and his wife the other 3 months. Ancient though they were, they could travel by train and walk up stairs. No one ambulatory to that degree is admitted to skilled nursing facilities in New York unless they are too addled by dementia to look after themselves.

            2. I can’t imagine a more clueless response to my informed comment. So, not wasting a minute going down this rabbit hole.

      2. loverly – I have always posited that women live longer because they have driven their husbands to an early grave. 😉

        1. Millions of men of middlin’ intellect have used this 1950’s era non-joke for years.

            1. Why, Paul?

              It’s obviously opinion, and you’re the least citing person here for comments that read much the same.

              What a joke you are.

                1. You wish it was so easy.

                  You’ve been making a fool of yourself for years at a site that many read.

                  Did you think your ridiculous commentary would never be noticed?

      3. If women were the majority legislators, yes, we would have a far more functional, equitable, and common sense health care system.

        1. Get back to us when you’ve mastered the difference between medical care and long-term care.

        2. Absolutely nothing about changing your mother’s Depends is going to give you any insight into how to order cost-allocation across various stakeholders in society.

        1. That’s a clever, wonky comment. I’m sure Loverly is still scratching her head. It takes a Libertarian to think of comments that create the essence of “deep thought” while saying nothing whatsoever!

          2. while saying nothing whatsoever!

            You didn’t understand the remark. Which is your problem, not a problem with the remark.

        2. I spent my career doing #1.

          And as for number 2, women are quite capable of doing both of those things. Most men are not.

          2. I spent my career doing #1.

            You spent your ‘career’ trying to understand the difference between ‘medical care’ and ‘long term care’??

            And as for number 2, women are quite capable of doing both of those things. Most men are not.

            Economics and statistics incorporate specialized knowledge, and, no, most people don’t acquire it, so making sense of problems in cost allocation in such a way as to craft a solution (rather than just understanding dysfunction in discrete areas) isn’t going to be widely dispersed among men or women.

            In you’re self-aggrandizing silliness, you fancy most men can’t walk their infirm mother to the toilet.

          3. loverly – men are capable, they just have learned helplessness. 😉

      1. Jane, should every Police Department have an Abortion Squad to investigate suspect women and doctors? Should hospitals be obliged to report “suspicious miscarriages”? Should doctors be obliged to tell women they ‘must’ carry every pregnancy to term regardless of health consequences?

        It’s easy to attack abortion as long as it’s legal. But the ramifications of an illegal climate could be more horrifying than anything that goes on at Planned Parenthood clinics.

        1. Jane, should every Police Department have an Abortion Squad to investigate suspect women and doctors? Should hospitals be obliged to report “suspicious miscarriages”? Should doctors be obliged to tell women they ‘must’ carry every pregnancy to term regardless of health consequences?

          1. No, a specialized inspectorate of the state Department of Health which makes referrals to the state police or state attorney-general will do.

          2. Well, of course they should. There’s a raft of professionals who are ‘mandatory reporters’ if they get the idea in their head that you’re smacking your kid around. Bit late for your to object.

          3. What, you want obstetricians to lie to women about what the law is? (Ectopic pregnancies account for < 2% of the abortions performed in this country every year, poseur).

          1. Nutchacha, you’d have police totally involved in enforcing abortion laws.

            Here in L.A. County, with a population of 10 million, the police and courts stay pretty busy. It’s hard to fathom the addition of thousands of abortion cases each year. Like the LAPD should make abortions a priority..?? Like the District Attorney’s office should assemble a crack team to put women and doctors in jail..??

            The truth is that if abortion was criminalized, across the country, women with money would simply “vacation abroad” to deal with reproductive issues. Which means abortion prosecutions would fall disproportionately on poor Whites and minorities. What a cheerless climate that would be!

            1. “The truth is that if abortion was criminalized, across the country, women with money would simply “vacation abroad” to deal with reproductive issues.“

              Slavery was made illegal but that didnt stop Bill Clintons ultra rich white female AG candidates from employing illegal immigrants.

              Talk about cheerless.

              “The Nannygate matter caused wealthy Americans to ask each other if they too had a “Zoë Baird problem”, as the hiring of illegal aliens and the paying of household help off the books were both commonplace. Two fault lines, gender and class, were exposed in the discussion over Nannygate: in the former, a double standard was seen wherein female appointees faced a greater risk of being questioned and disqualified based upon their childcare arrangements, while in the latter, affluent professional women who could afford live-in childcare arrangements were seen as trying to get away with an illegal act. Nannygate-type controversies have subsequently affected other political appointees both in the U.S. and in other countries.” Wiki

              1. Undocumented immigrants are caring not just for children, but the elderly as well. That’s especially true in Assisted Living facilities. Undocumented immigrants are handling the least desirable jobs.

            2. The truth is that if abortion was criminalized, across the country, women with money would simply “vacation abroad” to deal with reproductive issues. Which means abortion prosecutions would fall disproportionately on poor Whites and minorities. What a cheerless climate that would be!

              Liberals are adept at unintentional parody. Some people can escape consequences, ergo we enact no laws. You fancy that makes sense.

              Here in L.A. County, with a population of 10 million, the police and courts stay pretty busy. I

              There are about 2,000 obstetricians in the State of California. Keeping an eye on them is a task well within the capacity of the state health department if you’re willing to hire the inspectors.

              1. Well the political will isn’t here, Nutchacha. And it ain’t just California. What state are you in..???

          2. Then there is this gem:

            “It’s easy to attack abortion as long as it’s legal.”

            You know you got them when they can no longer use the “it is legal” trope, to wit….

            ”Virginia’s statutory scheme to prevent marriages between persons solely on the basis of racial classifications held to violate the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. Pp. 4-12.“
            https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/388/1.html

            If only laws were always moral and ethical. If only…

            Medical diagnostic procedures have shown for decades that babies in utero are a life and not a blob of tissue.
            For those on the Left who feign allegiamce to the medical sciences, it is shaeful how they refuse to welcome to the discussion the sciences of embryology, genetics, endocrinology and physiology during gestation

            “But the ramifications of an illegal climate could be more horrifying than anything that goes on at Planned Parenthood clinic”

            Peter is channelling Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes

            “It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind…
            Three generations of imbeciles are enough.” ~Oliver Wendell Holmes

            Writing for the majority in the Supreme Court’s affirmative decision of the Buck v. Bell landmark case, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. described Charlottesville native Carrie Buck as the “probable potential parent of socially inadequate offspring, likewise afflicted” stating that “her welfare and that of society will be promoted by her sterilization.”
            http://exhibits.hsl.virginia.edu/eugenics/

            small comfort that SCOTUS never rescinded this barbaric “legal” opinion.

            Auschwitz move over. Planned Barrenhood camps capture women but particularly pregnant black women, nod to Maggy Saenger

            1. Dee, you’re morality applies to a Reagan never-land where families all resemble households from 1950’s sitcoms.

              1. Get back to us when you learn how to think in something other than cliches.

  9. Give a gal a break! She’s hooked up with Enabler In Chief Hillary and is a FOB. That is credential enough to be in therapy for years. Consider her stupidity a fine example of liberal derangement caused by Stockholm Syndrome with Billary.

  10. How does a woman find a man’s strength?….Samson & Delilah

    Tom Jones Live…..Delilah, that no good girl was for me. I couldn’t take it any more. But she stood there & laughed.

  11. Garbage in, garbage out.

    This is just another vacuous statement by a politician trying to appease a crowd. Reason is not often the goal in this form of public speaking.

    1. Here’s my question, if Lehman Sisters would have been more risk averse, would they have become the substantial financial institution Lehman Brothers was?

      1. Rilaly DONT ASK SUCH QUESTIONS! only feminists have the right to make such observations. i heard one talking on bbc or npr the other day about women seeking promotions and how they are risk averse. that was ok for her but not you. i ‘spect you aint no feminist!

    2. I’ve had occasion to wonder the degree to which her legal career was derived from family connections. From a personal perspective, it made little sense for her to give it up, take a large pay cut, establish a notional residence in the Hudson Valley, and then run for Congress so she could spend hours and hours commuting every week (something married women with children are not anxious to do). Unless, of course, the sachems at her firm took her aside and told her she was in over her head.

      1. Or, unless it was her understanding with them that she would leave in due time. She’d evidently been denied a partnership at the first BigLaw firm she worked for (ordinary enough and happens to most associates) and then landed a patronage job at HUD and then another such on the staff of the Clinton campaign in 2000. The second BigLaw firm she worked for is politically connected and enmeshed with the Clinton’s.

  12. While I get her tongue-in-cheek shot, she has a point. Anything to break up the good ole boy network on Wall Street and banks in general is most likely a good thing. They got away with it, and will do it again.

    1. Sidebar….JT and his lack of posts on Rudy G and his PR campaign, shows that he must live by his motto….Res ipsa LoQuitur.

  13. Here’s a thought: What if Senator Gillibrand’s remark about “Lehman Sisters” was literally a joke and fully intended as such?

    One might object that it’s not a very funny joke. Humor is in the belly of the beholder. But would one really feign outrage on the presumption that the jest was in earnest? Why? If Trump can get away with claiming that his remarks from the Billy Bush tape were just locker-room talk, then why must Turley maintain the risible pretense that Senator Gillibrand was being serious rather than engaging in “locker-room talk” with her sisters? There’s a name for that sort of thing. What do they call it? Oh! I remember. A double standard. That’s what they call it.

    1. 1. She’s shown no capacity for humor.

      2. She has shown a capacity for striking attitudes of the stupid feminist genre.

      1. A) Because the belly of the beholder fails to see the humor in Gillibrand’s remark, therefore Gillibrand has shown no capacity for humor.

        B) Because the belly of the beholder is preternaturally unnerved by feminism, therefore Gillibrand has a capacity for striking attitudes of the stupid feminist genre.

        C) Because Trump wants to fire Mueller, therefore Mueller secretly wants to be fired by Trump.

        D) Because Trump is a celebrity, therefore women will let Trump do to them whatever Trump wants.

  14. Who’s on the board of directors for Lehman Sisters? Nancy Pelosi, Maxine Waters and Elizabeth Warren. And obviously Senator Gillibrand as CEO!

    1. No. Her ancestors are well ensconced in the Albany nomenklatura.

  16. This is where the financial problems started

    1. Robert Rubin

    Where to start with a man like Robert Rubin? A Goldman Sachs chairman who wormed his way into the Treasury Secretary post under President Bill Clinton, Rubin presided over one of the most radical deregulatory eras in the history of finance. Rubin’s influence within the Democratic Party marked the final stage in the Democrats’ transformation from the concerned citizens who fought Wall Street and won during the 1930s to a coalition of Republican-lite financial elites.

    2. Alan Greenspan

    The officially apolitical, independent Federal Reserve chairman backed all of Rubin’s favorite deregulatory plans, and helped crush an effort by Brooksley Born to regulate derivatives in 1998, after the hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management went bust. By the time Greenspan left office in 2006, the derivatives market had ballooned into a multi-trillion dollar casino, and Greenspan wanted his cut. He took a job with bond kings PIMCO and then with the hedge fund Paulson & Co.—yeah, that Paulson and Co., the one that colluded with Goldman Sachs to sabotage the company’s own clients with unregulated derivatives.

    3. Jamie Dimon

    J.P. Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon has done a lot of scummy things as head of one of the world’s most powerful banks, but his most grotesque act of corruption actually took place at the Federal Reserve. At each of the Fed’s 12 regional offices, the board of directors is staffed by officials from the region’s top banks. So while it’s certainly galling that the CEO of J.P. Morgan would be on the board of the New York Fed, one of J.P. Morgan’s regulators, it’s not all that uncommon.

    1. Restructuring of the legal architecture of the financial system antedated Rubin’s tenure at the Treasury department by 15 years. Greenspan was someone lobbying contra Brooksley Born’s work. Derivatives proved to be a problem with one unit of one company – the Financial Products Unit of AIG – which was peculiarly irresponsible. The rest of your remarks are smears.

      1. Hey Nutchacha, Is this a smear?

        4. Phil and Wendy Gramm

        Summers, Rubin and Greenspan weren’t the only people who thought it was a good idea to let banks gamble in the derivatives casinos. In 2000, Republican Senator from Texas Phil Gramm pushed through the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which not only banned federal regulation of these toxic poker chips, it also banned states from enforcing anti-gambling laws against derivatives trading. The bill was lobbied for heavily by energy/finance hybrid Enron, which would later implode under fraudulent derivatives trades. In 2000, when Phil Gramm pushed the bill through, his wife Wendy Gramm was serving on Enron’s board of directors, where she made millions before the company went belly-up.

        When Phil Gramm left the Senate, he took a job peddling political influence at Swiss banking giant UBS as vice chairman. Since Gramm’s arrival, UBS has been embroiled in just about every scandal you can think of, from securities fraud to tax fraud to diamond smuggling. Interestingly, both UBS shareholders and their executives have gotten off rather lightly for these acts. The only person jailed thus far has been the tax fraud whistleblower. Looks like Phil’s earning his keep.

        1. 1. You didn’t even bother to specify what Greenspan or Dimon did working for commercial companies that was corrupt.

          2. You can’t seem to credit Dr. Gramm with having a perspective on what optimal financial regulation looks like. Nor does it seem to occur to you that parsing out which regulatory changes proved troublesome is a challenging endeavour. Nor does it seem to occur to you that policy changes can have unintended consquences.

          You think you know something because you read it in a magazine article by Matt Taibbi. He doesn’t know anything and cannot impart anything.

          1. Hey Nutchacha, I never heard of “Matt Taibbi”. But you think you know? Smarty pants?

            5. Stephen Friedman

            The New York Fed is just full of corruption. Consider the case of Stephen Friedman (expertly presented by Greg Kaufmann for the Nation). As the financial crisis exploded in the fall of 2008, Friedman was serving both as chairman of the New York Fed and on the board of directors at Goldman Sachs. The Fed stepped in to prevent AIG from collapsing in September 2008, and by November, the New York Fed had decided to pay all of AIG’s counterparties 100 cents on the dollar for AIG’s bets—even though these companies would have taken dramatic losses in bankruptcy. The public wouldn’t learn which banks received this money until March 2009, but Friedman bought 52,600 shares of Goldman stock in December 2008 and January 2009, more than doubling his holdings.

            As it turns out, Goldman was the top beneficiary of the AIG bailout, to the tune of $12.9 billion. Friedman made millions on the Goldman stock purchase, and is yet to disclose what he knew about where the AIG money was going, or when he knew it. Either way, it’s pretty bad—if he knew Goldman benefited from the bailout, then he belongs in jail. If he didn’t know, then what exactly was he doing as chairman of the New York Fed, or on Goldman’s board?

            1. November, the New York Fed had decided to pay all of AIG’s counterparties 100 cents on the dollar for AIG’s bets—even though these companies would have taken dramatic losses in bankruptcy

              The Fed and the Treasury provided financing for AIG to shut down its Financial Products Unit in return for warrants to purchase AIG equity. They also replaced AIG’s board and management. The decision to do this was made by the Treasury and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, not by the Federal Reserve Bank in New York. They later sold the warrants to recoup the financing.

              The Nation is a skeevy opinion magazine, not a source of news on business and finance.

              1. Hey Nutchacha, seems like we have a difference of opinions

                You crashed my posts. I gave you fair warning. Did I say something stupid & funny? Enter the ring. “Sock Puppet”. You are arguing & complaining with the other posters on JT’s blog. But what does your arguing, argue?

    2. You obviously missed the memo (sarcasm intended) that the financial fiasco had little to do with government, Carter policies, Clinton policies, Bush policies, and the 14 to 17 blocks from Frank in congress to prevent Bush from trying to reverse his error.

  17. I think Kirsten’s a poseur, and likely has been since high school.

    1. I live in NY, and unfortunately, this creature seems to be gaining popularity and will most likely be the next Hillery for years to come.

      1. Annie/Inga – Manafort has the money to fight Mueller. The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming!

        1. A song for Captain Mueller’s anniversary from Gary Wright:

          Well, I think it’s time to get ready
          To realize just what I have found
          I have lived only half of what I am
          It’s all clear to me now

          My heart is on fire
          My soul’s like a wheel that’s turnin’
          My love is alive
          My love is alive, yeah, girl, yeah

          There’s something inside that’s making me crazy
          I’ll try to keep it together
          ‘Cause what I say may not happen the same way
          Now could be forever

    2. Excerpted from the article linked above:

      Citing press reports that Manafort filed with the court discussing his activities abroad, [Judge Ay Berman] Jackson suggested it would have been malpractice for Mueller not to have investigated him [Manafort].

      “Given the combination of his prominence within the campaign and his ties to Ukrainian officials supported by and operating out of Russia, as well as to Russian oligarchs, Manafort was an obvious person of interest,“ she wrote. “Given what was being said publicly, the Special Counsel would have been remiss to ignore such an obvious potential link between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.“

  19. Today, May 17th, 2018, is the one year anniversary of the appointment as special counsel of he who will not be deterred, Robert Swan Mueller The Third.

    Here’s what Turley had to say on the subject a few days back in an article in The HIll:

    “If the operation with Deripaska contravened federal law, this figure could be viewed as a potential embarrassment for Mueller. The question is whether he could implicate Mueller in an impropriety.”

    The operation with Oleg Deripaska to which Turley referred was a 2009 FBI effort to secure the release Robert Levison from his captors in Iran. That operation did not succeed. The impropriety to which Turley alluded is that Iran was under US sanctions in 2009 and the FBI could not directly pay a ransom for Levison’s release. The idea that Deripaska could implicate Mueller in that supposed impropriety is further imagined to be why Mueller did not mention Deripaska by name in the indictments Mueller brought against Paul Manafort. However, Deripaska has been mentioned by name along with Konstantin Kilimnik in every court filing Mueller has made thus far in response to Manafort’s motions to dismiss the indictments against him. So much for Mueller’s supposed reticence to name Deripaska.

    BTW, Judge Amy Berman Jackson has finally released for public consumption her decision to deny Manafort’s motion to dismiss in the District of Columbia. A trial date has been set for September of this year.

    P. S. Happy anniversary, Special Counsel Mueller.

    3. Excerpted from the Courthouse News article that was just deleted:

      According to Weissman, in June 2017 the government transmitted a request to Cyprus seeking bank records, articles of incorporation and witness interviews concerning Manafort’s bank accounts there.

      Late that month, a federal judge in Virginia agreed to suspend the statute of limitations as the request to Cyprus was pending. Cyprus is one of several countries where prosecutors say Manafort laundered profits from political consulting services he offered to the president of Ukraine.

      Cypriot officials finally responded to Mueller’s request in September 2017 and submitted more documents to special counsel in October and November 2017 and then again last month. Those submissions did not completely fulfill Mueller’s request of Cyprus, however.

      “The bottom line is that Cyprus had not fully satisfied the government’s official request when the original and superseding indictment of Manafort were returned on February 13 and 22, respectively,” Weissman notes. “As a result, no ‘final action’ had yet occurred…and the applicable statute of limitations remained suspended.”

      Manafort was unaware of the existing order when he made his request to have the count tossed, Weissman adds. A copy of the order has since been provided to the defense.

      A waiver of the statute of limitations cannot exceed three years.

Comments are closed.