The Many Musketeers - One for all, all for one: Paulson, Kashari, Rubin, Goldman Sachs, etc.

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Bush's Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson, was chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs before he joined the government in 2006. He used to be the Goldman CEO and spent $85 billion to buy a failing insurance giant that happened to owe his former firm a lot of money.

Paulson appointed former Goldman Sachs vice-president, Neel Kashkari, to decide who got the bailout money as head of the Office of Financial Stability. Kashkari, in turn, appointed Reuben Jeffery, a Managing Partner at Goldman Sachs, as interim chief investment officer.

Other important players in the Treasury were Dan Jester, Steve Shafran, Edward C Forst, and Robert K Steel, all Goldman people. Goldman executives at the key New York Federal Reserve Bank were also involved in the bailout discussions, including Stephen Friedman, the head of the board of governors.

Bill Clinton's Treasury Secretary, Robert Rubin, who did so much to prepare the ground for the collapse of 2008, was CEO at Goldman Sachs. Rubin, the Co-Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations, was also named in Obama's interim team.

Two of Rubin's 'protégés', Timothy Geithner and Larry Summers, were appointed by Obama to decide his economic policy. Goldman Sachs paid Summers $135,000 for a single day's 'appearance' in 2008. Geithner, a former executive of Kissinger Associates and member of the Council on Foreign Relations, appointed Goldman Sachs lobbyist, Mark Patterson, as his chief of staff at the Treasury.


Who was the biggest single private donor to Obama's election campaign? Goldman Sachs.

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