Let the Big Banks Fail--Bob A. Feldman

How Corporate Democratic Obama-Biden Administration Failed to Create Jobs For U.S. Workers

In 2019 some Democratic Party politicians have been claiming that their Billionaire-donor-funded political party serves the economic class interests of U.S. workers when a Corporate Democratic President occupies the White House oval office. Yet according to Jack Rasmus's 2012 Pluto Press book, Obama's Recovery: Recovery For The Few, during the first term of the 2009-2017 Corporate Democratic Obama-Biden Administration in Washington, D.C.:

"...More than a million additional jobs were...lost between December 2008 and June 2010 after Obama's $787 billion stimulus was introduced. Construction jobs declined from 6.83 million in December [2008] to 5.78 million by June 2010, a loss of 1.05 million jobs. Similarly, manufacturing jobs over the same 18-month period fell from 12.98 million to 11.60 million, a decline of 1.38 million...There was essentially no actual jobs creation program in Obama's initial economic recovery proposals of January 2009, or in the final version that was eventually passed by Congress in February 2009...For the entire year [of 2009], the first of Obama's term in office, total foreclosed properties were a record, 3,240,867, almost a million more than in 2008..."

The same book also indicated how the Corporate Democratic Obama-Biden Administration apparently served the special economic interests of Wall Street investment banks when a Corporate Democratic President occupied the White House oval office between 2009 and 2017:

"At the top of Obama's economic recovery priority list was the bank bailout--not job creation, not housing...It was no accident that the banking and finance industry was the single largest campaign contributor to Obama's 2008 election.

"...In 2008...the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP...was $700 billion in funds provided by Congress to the U.S. Treasury to buy banks' bad assets...

"The TARP approach to bank bailouts proved ineffective and politically risky...The $700 billion...raised taxpayer ire. TARP was too visible and thus was dangerous politically for administration and Congress alike. Using the Federal Reserve to bail out the banks was far less visible and preferable politically.

"...It wasn't until July 2010 that...it became public the Fed had spent $9 trillion on the bank bailouts up to that date...The Fed was insulated from electoral--and therefore Congressional--pressure to a large extent...The Federal Reserve could simply print money in the worst situation, if necessary, to bail out the financial sector...The U.S. government undertook...bank stress tests...in March [2009]...to...artificially boost bank stock prices...

"With more capital on hand from the stock appreciation and offerings, the banks loaned out the additional funds...to speculators like hedge funds, private equity firms and the like. The latter were busy speculating in Chinese property, foreign currencies, derivatives, swaps and similar investments. The banks that loaned them the funds in turn made nice profits, which further boosted their stock prices. Banks thus turned once again to the speculative investing that got them into trouble in the first place. The government turned a blind eye to the practice...The Fed charged the banks a mere 0.25 percent for banks to borrow funds from it. The banks then lent the money to speculators globally and received returns of 6 to 10 percent on average. Free money from the Fed for above-average market returns...

"So the method by which the banks and other financial institutions were effectively `rescued' or bailed out was...via...the Fed, through means of near zero cost loans, with interest paid to the banks on those loans, and via measures that artificially boasted bank stocks...such as phony stress tests and suspension of reasonable accounting rules..."

Hillary Clinton's 1990's White House Years Revisited: Part 1

If 2016 Democratic Party presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is elected on November 8, 2016 to become first wife of a former U.S. president to win a U.S. presidential election, and she moves into the White House for four years on January 20, 2017, it won't be the first time that Clinton will be occupying the White House. As she recalled in her 2003 book Living History (for which she was paid more than $10 million in book advance and book royalties by the Viacom-CBS media conglomerate's Simon and Schuster book publishing subsidiary): 

"...Throughout the [1993] inaugural festivities, Bill [Clinton] received security briefings...He was already shifting his attention...to news of U.S. planes that were bombing Iraq...The [Secret] Service uses code names for its protectees...Bill [Clinton] became `Eagle,' I was `Evergreen.'...

"...I wanted to put our personal stamp on the White House...I hired Walter Scheib, an experienced chef...In early February [1993], Bill [Clinton] and I invited Vince Foster, now Deputy White House Counsel; Bruce Lindsey, also in the Counsel's office and still one of Bill [Clinton]'s closest advisers and traveling companion; and Webb Hubbell, Associate Attorney General, to a...dinner in the second-floor dining room...Bruce, Vince and Webb were among my closest friends...I can still close my eyes and see Vince at that table...

"On January 25 [1993], Bill [Clinton] invited me...to lunch in the President's small study near the Oval Office...and our old friend Ira Magaziner,a...business consultant...Ira...had private sector experience as the owner of a consulting business in Rhode Island that advised multinational companies on how to become...profitable...

"...As the wife of a...President, I didn't have to worry about my family's access to health care...Bill [Clinton] announced that I would chair a newly formed President's Task Force on National Health Care Reform...Several of Bill [Clinton]'s key lieutenants heartily endorsed the idea, including [then-Goldman Sachs executive] Robert Rubin, Chairman of the National Economic Council and later Secretary of the Treasury. One of my favorite people in the administration, [former-Goldman Sachs executive] Bob [Rubin] is fabulously...successful...

"...Bill [Clinton]...had won the [1992] election...with less than a majority of the popular vote--43 percent...Bill [Clinton]...rejected the single-payer and Medicare models, preferring a quasi-private system...that relied on private market forces...

"In...Yugoslavia...I was disgusted by the failure of the United Nations to intervene...I was convinced that the only way to stop...genocide in Bosnia was through...air strikes against Serbian targets...Bill [Clinton] met with his advisers to consider American involvement...

"...On July 20 [1993]...Vince Foster was dead; it looked like a suicide...Bernie Nussbaum...had been with Vince the morning of his death...Two days after Vince's death, Bernie Nussbaum went to Vince's office and, with representatives from the Justice Department and the FBI, reviewed every document there...In the course of this first search, Bernie discovered that Vince had stored in his office some files containing work he had done for Bill [Clinton] and me when he was our attorney in Little Rock, including files that had to do with the land deal called Whitewater. Bernie gave these files to Maggie Williams; and, soon after, they were transferred to the office of Bob Barnett, our private attorney in Washington...

"...By late August [1993], [then-Treasury Secretary Lloyd] Bentsen, Secretary of State Warren Christopher and economic adviser [former Goldman Sachs Director] Bob Rubin were adamant about postpoining health care reform and moving forward with the North American Free Trade Agreement, known as NAFTA. They believed that...NAFTA warranted immediate action and creating a free trade zone in North America...would...create jobs..."

(end of part 1)

`Let The Big Banks Fail' protest folk song

Obama's Gary Gensler-Goldman Sachs-Commodity Futures Trading Commission (and Jefferson Davis-Slave-owning Family) Connections Revisited

“Less than a year ago, federal markets regulator Gary Gensler could reflect fondly on his association with Wall Street mogul and former politician Jon S. Corzine.

“The two had known each other for years, working together at Goldman Sachs and then in Congress, where Corzine was a senator and Gensler was a Senate aide. Invited by Corzine last November to speak at Princeton University about financial regulation, Gensler reminisced about their days crafting legislation and got in a friendly jab about Corzine’s upcoming wedding.
“`Jon, your life has changed a lot since our days together on a trading floor if this is your idea of a bachelor party,’ Gensler said.

“Now, the relationship has taken on an entirely different cast. Gensler, as chief of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), is one of the key regulators probing the brokerage firm MF Global that Corzine led into bankruptcy…”

--from the November 4, 2011 issue of The Washington Post

“President Obama should replace Gary Gensler as the Commodity Futures Trading Commission chairman with someone who will enforce speculation limits on Wall Street oil and gas traders, Sen. Bernie Sanders said in a letter sent to the White House on Monday. Sanders said Wall Street speculators were responsible for a spike in crude oil prices that, in turn, artificially drove up gasoline prices this spring to a nationwide average of about $4 a gallon for regular unleaded. Under Gensler, the commission has failed to enforce a provision in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which required rules to be implemented by no later than January 17, 2011, to eliminate, prevent, or diminish excessive oil speculation.

“`In blatant disregard of the law, Chairman Gensler has allowed oil and gasoline prices to be dictated by Wall Street speculators instead of supply-and-demand fundamentals,’ Sanders wrote to the president. `As a result, the American people continue to pay much higher prices for gasoline than they should.
"`At a time when gasoline prices have been a serious problem for our nation's economy and especially for people who must drive long distances to and from work in rural states like Vermont, the commission's refusal to enforce the law is inexcusable,’ the senator added.

"Gensler's term expired in April but he continues to serve as chairman.

“Sanders on March 5, 2012 sent a letter to Gensler and other commissioners urging them to stop flouting the law that required regulators to adopt tough new trading limits. The letter was signed by 24 other senators and 47 members of the House of Representatives….”

--from a June 4, 2012 press release of U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont’s office

Obama’s Gary Gensler-Goldman Sachs-Commodity Futures Trading Commission (and Jefferson Davis-Slave-owning Family) Connections Revisited

Between 2009 and 2012 the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has apparently allowed Wall Street speculators to artificially drive up gasoline prices to nearly $4 a gallon in recent months. One reason might be because the head of the Democratic Obama Administration’s Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Gary Gensler, worked for many years as a Goldman Sachs executive on Wall Street before being appointed by Obama to his current public office. As Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter noted in his 2010 book The Promise: President Obama, Year One:

“…Gary Gensler, the new head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission…had…worked at Goldman Sachs and he had worked on the Obama campaign…”

  Coincidentally, in the same book, Alter also observed that “Obama is not himself a descendant of American slaves, but…a descendant of African goatherds on one side and Jefferson Davis on the other.” In addition, in its March 2, 2007 issue, the Baltimore Sun reported the following:

“According to the research, one of Obama's great-great-great-great grandfathers, George Washington Overall, owned two slaves who were recorded in the 1850 census in Nelson County, Ky. The same records show that one of Obama's great-great-great-great-great-grandmothers, Mary Duvall, also owned two slaves….The records show that Overall, then 30, owned a 15-year-old black female and a 25-year-old black male, while Mary Duvall, his mother-in-law, owned a 60-year-old black man and a 58-year-old black woman. (Slaves are listed in the 1850 census by owner, age, "sex," and "colour," not by name.)”

New York Times and Goldman Sachs-Linked Foundations (and Mutual of America Life Insurance Company) Sponsor `Moyers and Company' Television Show

“Carnegie Corporation of New York today announced a grant of $2 million to support the return of Bill Moyers to public television in 2012 with a new weekly program…Earlier this year, Carnegie Corporation’s Board of Trustees approved a two-year, $2 million grant for the production of this program…The program will be aimed at core public television viewers who have long followed Moyers’s work but will also seek new digital audiences who expect to watch programming via the Internet, apps or social media….Bill Moyers was an aide to President Johnson at the White House and staffed the president on the work that led to the establishment of public media.”

--from an August 22, 2011 Carnegie Corporation of New York press release

“Janet L. Robinson became president and chief executive officer of The New York Times Company on December 27, 2004 and retired from that position on December 31, 2011….Previously, she had served as chief operating officer and executive vice president since February 2004. From February 2001 until January 2004, she served as senior vice president, newspaper operations for The New York Times Company. In this role, she led the operations of all of the Company’s newspaper properties, which included The New York Times, The Boston Globe, the International Herald Tribune and the regional newspapers. In addition, she was responsible for all digital and broadcast operations. She also held the position of president and general manager of The New York Times newspaper from 1996 until 2004. Ms. Robinson was elected director of the Company in December 2004…"

--from the Carnegie Corporation of New York website

“MissionPoint Capital Partners is a private investment firm established by Mark Schwartz, former President and Chief Executive Officer of Soros Fund Management and former Chairman of Goldman Sachs (Asia); Jesse M. Fink, co-founder and former Chief Operating Officer of priceline.com; and Mark J. Cirilli, former Chief Investment Officer of Marshall Street Management…Our LP base is comprised of like-minded, sophisticated investors and include HNW individuals, institutions, endowments, foundations, and partnerships.”

---from the MissionPoint Capital Partners website

New York Times and Goldman Sachs-Linked Foundations (and Mutual of America Life Insurance Company) Sponsor `Moyers and Company’ Television Show

Besides being sponsored by the Mutual of America Life Insurance Company, former Johnson White House Chief of Staff and Schumann Center for Media and Democracy President Bill Moyers’ Public Affairs TV media firm also was given a $2 million “charitable grant” in 2011 by the tax-exempt Carnegie Corporation of New York’s board of trustees to produce the “Moyers and Company” public television show. Coincidentally, the chairperson of the Carnegie Corporation of New York’s board of trustees was also a New York Times Company president, chief executive officer and corporate board member between 2004 and 2011.

In addition to being funded these days by Mutual of America and the New York Times-linked Carnegie Corporation of New York, left-liberal media gatekeeper and funder Moyers’s “Moyers and Company” television show has also been receiving “charitable grants” from a foundation, the Fink Foundation, that apparently holds, through a business arrangement with Goldman Sachs, over $6 million worth of corporate stocks and corporate bonds. According to its Form 990 financial filing for 2010, for example, the $18.5 million worth of assets of the tax-exempt and “non-profit” Betsy and Jesse Fink Foundation included:

1. Over $1.1 million worth of corporate stock “held thru Goldman Sachs;”

2. $3 million worth of corporate bonds held through the “Goldman Sachs Enhanced Income Fund;”

3. $1.5 million worth of corporate bonds held through the “Goldman Sachs Strategic Income Fund;”

4. $1.1 million worth of corporate bonds held through the “Goldman Sachs Core Fixed Income” fund; and

5. $101,000 worth of corporate bonds held through the “Goldman Sachs Emerging Markets Debt Fund.”

In addition, the Fink Foundation that helps to fund the “Moyers and Company” tv show also is apparently obtaining some of its “charitable grant” money by investing in the “Goldman Sachs Developing Market Real Estate” fund.

Coincidentally, the chief financial officer of the MissionPoint Capital Partners investment firm (of which Fink Foundation Manager Jesse Fink is board chairman), Len Nero, “most recently served as a vice president at Goldman, Sachs and Co where he was a member of the Investment Management Division’s Private Equity Group which manages over $20 billion in private equity funds, direct investments and secondary transactions,” according to the MissionPoint Capital Partners website. In addition, Fink Foundation Manager Jesse Fink, himself, is also“President and Chief Executive Officer of Marshall Street Management, a family office established in 1999” and apparently used to work for Citicorp.

So don’t expect the “Moyers and Company” television show to allow many critics of either the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the New York Times/Boston Globe mass media conglomerate's manipulation of U.S. public opinion or the Fink Foundation’s Goldman Sachs’ links and investments to appear on its programs in 2012 or 2013.

Obama's Rahm Emanuel, Wall Street and Chicago Daley Machine Connections

“In late 1998…Rahm Emanuel, a departing senior political aide to President Bill Clinton, ventured out to an elegant restaurant in Dupont Circle…John Simpson, who ran the Chicago office of…Wasserstein Perella & Company, had flown to Washington to meet with Mr. Emanuel at the behest of Mr. Simpson’s boss, Bruce Wasserstein, a major Democratic donor and renowned Wall Street dealmaker who had gotten to know Mr. Emanuel.

“`I had this idea that this could work and that it had upside,’ said Mr. Wasserstein, now chairman and chief executive of Lazard, the investment bank….Shortly afterward, Mr. Emanuel accepted an offer, nudging him down what has by now become a well-trodden gilded path out of politics and into the lucrative world of business.

“Mr. Emanuel, who was chosen last month to become President-elect Barack Obama’s White House chief of staff, went on to make more than $18 million in just two-and-a-half years, turning many of his contacts in his substantial political Rolodex into paying clients…Mr. Emanuel built up strong ties with an industry now at the heart of the economic crisis…After Mr. Emanuel left banking to run for Congress, members of the securities and investment industry became his biggest backers, donating more than $1.5 million to his campaigns dating back to 2002, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

“Mr. Emanuel also leaned heavily upon the industry while he was chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee during the 2006 midterm elections. Financial industry donors contributed more than $5.8 million to the committee…Friends of Mr. Emanuel’s from his private-sector days said he still checks in with them regularly….It was Morton L. Janklow, the literary agent for several former presidents, who introduced Mr. Emanuel to Mr. Wasserstein…Mr. Emanuel met Mr. Wasserstein in his New York office,…His connections certainly helped drum up business and contributed to his hiring, former colleagues said. Indeed, a partial list of clients from Mr. Emanuel’s Congressional financial disclosure in 2002 is easily linked up to the various strands of his political career, including his time as a fund-raiser for Mayor Richard M. Daley of Chicago and then for Mr. Clinton’s first presidential run.

“The clients included Loral Space & Communications, run by Bernard L. Schwartz, one of the Democratic Party’s biggest donors, who said he got to know Mr. Emanuel while he was in the White House; the Chicago Board Options Exchange, whose chairman and chief executive, William J. Brodsky, became friends with Mr. Emanuel while he was working for Mayor Daley; and Avolar, a business aviation company whose top executive, Stuart I. Oran, was formerly in charge of governmental affairs for United Airlines, a role in which he said he interacted with Mr. Emanuel at the White House.

“One of Mr. Emanuel’s major deals was the purchase in 2001 of a home alarm business, SecurityLink, from SBC Communications, the telecommunications company that was run by William M. Daley, the former secretary of commerce in the Clinton administration and the brother of Chicago’s mayor….Mr. Emanuel’s biggest transaction came in late 1999 when he landed an advisory role for Wasserstein in the $8.2 billion merger of two utility companies, Unicom, the parent company of Commonwealth Edison, and Peco Energy, to create Exelon, now one of the nation’s largest power companies.

“John W. Rowe, the former chief executive of Unicom who now holds the same position at Exelon, sought out Mr. Emanuel after he went to Wasserstein… Mr. Rowe…was first introduced to Mr. Emanuel by Lester Crown, the billionaire scion of Chicago’s influential Crown family.

“Tax returns Mr. Emanuel released while first running for office and reported in news articles, along with Congressional financial disclosures, reveal his steep financial ascent while working at Wasserstein. He earned more than $900,000 in 1999, his first year at the firm; nearly $1.4 million in 2000; and $6.5 million in 2001, when he left the firm in midyear to run for Congress. He collected $9.7 million more from the firm in deferred compensation in 2002….The bonanza Mr. Emanuel reaped would come in handy when he ran for the House seat vacated by Representative Rod R. Blagojevich, now governor.

“Mr. Emanuel contributed $450,000 out of his own pocket to his campaign in the primary, and his leading rival accused him of trying to buy a seat in Congress.

--from a Dec. 4, 2008 New York Times article by Michael Luo, titled “In Banking, Emanuel Made Money and Connections.”

“…At the end of the summer of 1989, Obama was an intern at Sidley Austin, a prestigious Chicago law firm that also happened to employ...Michelle Robinson…Michelle left Sidley Austin to become an Assistant to Chicago Mayor Richard Daley…The move was not without its benefits. Michelle Obama's stint at the mayor's office gave her, and her husband, access to Chicago's political class...Michelle helped give Obama an invaluable new base in Chicago politics...After 18 months, she left the mayor's office…”

--from an Aug. 25, 2008 Time magazine article

Obama’s Rahm Emanuel, Wall Street and Chicago Daley Machine Connection

On reason 2012 Democratic Party presidential candidate Barack Obama failed to bring much radical democratic change to the United States between 2009 and 2012 might be because of his political and personal historical and current links to rich white politicians like Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, to the corrupt Daley Machine of Chicago’s Regular Democratic Party organization and to various super-rich white bankers from Wall Street firms like Goldman Sachs and Citigroup. As Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter observed in his 2010 book, The Promise: President Obama, Year One:

“Obama and Rahm…had a teasing relationship based on Rahm’s legendary profanity…By October [2008] Rahm had become an important part of the campaign…The soon-to-be president…had to convince Rahm Emanuel to give up his dream of being the…speaker of the House.

“Rahm was in all the early meetings, but nailing down a commitment from him to be chief of staff taxed Obama’s persuasive power…The two men spoke in person about the job at least half a dozen times…If he took the job, Obama said, he’d be his `right-hand’ man on everything…

“Michelle Obama’s father, Fraser Robinson, held his job as a worker in the city water department in part because of his political work as a precinct captain in the Regular Democratic Party organization…

“…Obama asked his…campaign economic advisors…to assemble a team of 8 to 10 big thinkers for conference calls every 5 days or so…Three former treasury secretaries were on the list: Robert Rubin, the…senior advisor (and former chairman) at…Citigroup.., Larry Summers, the…Rubin protégé.., Paul O’Neill, the…former ALCOA chairman…Warren Buffett and Paul Volcker were often on the line. The second richest-man in the world had met Obama in 2004…His endorsement gave the candidate a boost…Volcker…had known Obama since mid-2007…

“…During his years at the top of Goldman Sachs, the Clinton administration (where he…served as treasury secretary), Citigroup, and the Hamilton Project…[Robert] Rubin mentored scores of…young policy types. More than a dozen of them eventually worked in important positions under Obama and maintained their relationship with Rubin. [Tim Geithner, Larry Summers, Peter Orszag, Michael Froman, Philip Murphy, Gene Sperling, Jason Furm, Jacob Lew, Gary Gensler, Diana Farrell, Lewis Alexander, Lael Brainard and David Lipton]…

“Summers quickly became Obama’s dominant economic advisor…Buffett…had invested heavily…in Moody’s, one of the corrupted ratings agencies that gave cover to the reckless…Summers had taken a…hands-off view…of regulating derivatives while at the treasury department in the 1990s and as late as 2008 made more than $5 million consulting on them for the hedge fund D.E. Shaw and Co….The New York Times revealed that Summers was a consultant for Taconic Capital Advisors as early as 2004, when he was still president of Harvard and lecturing faculty members on why they couldn’t moonlight…Obama and his economic advisors met in Miami on September 19 [2008]…”

  So it’s not surprising that the undemocratic control of both Chicago’s city government and the U.S. federal government by Wall Street investment bankers and Billionaire U.S. plutocrats like Warren Buffett and Lester Crown has continued under the Democratic Obama regime since 2009.

`Occupy Columbia': Columbia Students Expose Columbia's Wall Street Connections

(The following column by Yoni Golijov and Sumayya Kassamali was first posted on the Columbia Daily Spectator student newspaper website at Columbia University on October 13, 2011)

OCCUPY COLUMBIA

by Yoni Golijov and Sumayya Kassamali

Let’s not kid ourselves about how the beautiful space that is our university is paid for. Despite the tuition you are paying, the accumulated largesse of oligarchs of Manhattan continues to fund a large share of Columbia’s operations. The slew of named buildings and endowed chairs reflects how much Columbia University’s endowment is the combination of illicit wealth it has accumulated from Caribbean slavery in the past all the way to the financial crisis in 2008.

This larger fact is the background for many smaller connections between Columbia and Wall Street. Columbia’s endowment depends on good relations with the financial Masters of the Universe. For example, all of the five vice chairs of the board of trustees are financiers, from Goldman Sachs to real estate. Then there is the infamous Columbia Business School, where professors of finance reap enormous salaries from outside consulting gigs and positions on corporate boards of directors.

“Inside Job” did well at revealing some of the dodgy conflicts of interest surrounding the business school faculty. But it missed something that’s perhaps deeper. Many of the business school faculty would probably peddle the interests of the ultra-wealthy for free—they really believe it. Glenn Hubbard, the dean, was chair of the Republican Council of Economic Advisors, championed the first Bush tax cuts, and has repeatedly come out in favor of more and bigger tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans as the surest route to growth.

Moving along, there are the various cross-affiliations with the law school. Most immediately, Michael Sovern, former university president and a professor at Columbia Law School, is chairman of the board of Sotheby’s, the luxury art and real estate dealer. Sotheby’s is currently locking out its workers, members of Teamsters’ Local 814, and is demanding that all new hires work temp jobs with no benefits. The lockout has been going on for 10 weeks.

Finally, there is the conflict of interest of President Bollinger’s chairmanship of the board of the New York Federal Reserve. Bollinger was appointed to fill the shoes of Denis Hughes, state president of the AFL-CIO, to “represent the public” in the Fed. But how can Bollinger, whose job involves befriending the ultra-wealthy and convincing them to write checks to the University, carry out responsibilities that could endanger that very wealth (like pushing for higher inflation or large-scale student debt relief)? This is just the tip of the iceberg, and many more connections could be discussed. One ironic consequence of Columbia’s allegiance to the wealthy is that the endowment could actually swell with an increase in high-income and capital gains taxes. The endowment is a tax-exempt foundation, and evidence suggests that donations to such things increase when taxes go up. But the more fundamental problem is the dependence of Columbia’s prestige on the goodwill of the ultra-wealthy. While public universities like CUNY/SUNY are starved of funds, Columbia’s opulence remains, courtesy of a cozy relationship with Wall Street.

Yoni Golijov is a Columbia College senior majoring in economics-philosophy. Sumayya Kassamali is a Ph.D. student in the department of anthropology at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

Supreme Court Justice-Designate Kagan's Goldman Sachs Connection?

Did you notice that the former Williams & Connolly D.C. law-lobbying firm associate and Clinton White House Staff member-lawyer that Democratic President Obama recently appointed to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court bench, U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan, both sat on a "non-profit" board with an AIG executive and spoke at an American Friends of the Hebrew University/lobby function honoring a Goldman Sachs executive?

As the Equal Justice Works website notes, U.S. Solicitor General Kagan recently sat on the Equal Justice Works “non-profit” board next to Anastasia “Stasia” Kelly; and “Anastasia `Stasia' Kelly is the executive vice president and general counsel and senior regulatory and compliance officer of American Insurance Group (AIG)” who “leads a worldwide legal and regulatory team and manages the Corporate Secretary function of this international insurance and financial services firm.”

And, as the Jewish Forward newspaper’s website revealed:

"Unlike Jewish women comics who tend to malign their mothers, Elena Kagan, dean of Harvard Law School (whose awesome curriculum vitae includes a stint as associate counsel to the president (1995-1999), paid homage to hers. At the October 19 American Friends of the Hebrew University lawyers lunch at Cipriani 42nd Street, Kagan told the sea of suits that (despite all her accomplishments) her mother “would be proud” that she was the keynote speaker at this George A. Katz “Torch of Learning” luncheon honoring Robert Katz, a philanthropist and partner at The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc".

So don't expect many Goldman Sachs or AIG executives to be quickly sent to jail if they're convicted of or plead guilty to any white collar crimes--if former Clinton White House staff member-lawyer Kagan is confirmed as the next U.S. Supreme Court Justice.

Judge Sack's Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher/Bush White House Connection?

If you check out the May 1, 2009 financial disclosure form that Columbia Law School faculty member Robert D. Sack filed for 2008 (which is posted on the Judicial Watchdog website at ( http://www.judicialwatch.org/judge/sack-robert-d ), you’ll notice that the federal appellate court judge who wrote the recent unjust legal decision in the Lynne Stewart Case was paid $7,500 by Columbia Law School in 2008. In addition, Judge Sack apparently also received $72,000 in 2008 from the Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP Retirement Plan—at the same time he was employed as both a federal court judge and a lecturer at Columbia Law School.

Coincidentally, the lawyer who served as the principal legal advisor to the National Security Council in the Bush White House, Michael Edney, now works in the Washington, D.C. office of the Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP firm whose “retirement plan” apparently paid Judge Sack $72,000 in 2008. As a press release, titled “Former White House Legal Advisor Returns to Gibson Dunn in D.C.,” that was posted on the Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP website on May 13, 2009 revealed:

“Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP welcomes back Michael J. Edney to its Washington, D.C. office after four years of high-level Executive Branch experience in the White House and the Department of Justice. Edney rejoins the approximately 125-lawyer litigation practice group in the Washington, D.C. office, including more than a dozen former Department of Justice attorneys….From 2007 to 2009, Edney served as a principal legal advisor to the National Security Council in the White House. In that position, he participated in crafting and implementing the Administration’s response to national security legal matters in the courts, before Congress, and in the public….

“Edney resumes his litigation practice at Gibson Dunn after a four-year absence…He joined the Office of Legal Counsel in the United States Department of Justice in 2005, where he provided legal advice on the most difficult constitutional and statutory issues facing the Executive Branch…He brings to Gibson Dunn a wide knowledge of the Department of Justice’s civil litigation and criminal enforcement practices. In 2007, he joined the National Security Council staff in the White House, where he served among a small group of legal crisis management experts responsible for national security…His responsibilities included advising senior White House policymakers and reaching consensus among the senior lawyers of the Executive Branch on the most serious national security legal questions confronting the Nation….”

A former Assistant United States Attorney named Alexander Southwell also began working in 2007 at the New York office of the Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP firm whose “retirement plan” apparently paid Judge Sack $72,000 in 2008. As a July 24, 2007 press release on the Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP website noted:

“…Mr. Southwell joins a number of former Assistant U.S. Attorneys at Gibson Dunn, including Jarrett Arp, Robert Blume, Robert Bonner (U.S. Attorney, Cent. Dist. of Calif.), David Burns, David Debold, Lee Dunst, Miguel Estrada, Michael Farhang, Douglas Fuchs, Nicola Hanna, Peter Jaffe, Randy Mastro, Marcellus McRae, Orin Snyder, John Sturc, Maurice Suh, Jim Walden, Joseph Warin, Gregory Whitehair, and Debra Wong Yang (U.S. Attorney, Cent. Dist. of Calif.).

“Mr. Southwell served from 2001 through 2007 as an Assistant U.S. Attorney with the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Southern District of New York.”