The New York Times pulled back the curtain this week to give readers a rare glimpse at the workings of a political-economy essentially run by a ruling elite. Anyone who thinks representative democracy can’t coexist with rule by a political class is in for a surprise. The clique need not control everything. The pervasive money and banking industries are more than enough.
The rest of this week's TGIF, "Of, By, and For the Elite," is here.
Friday, May 01, 2009
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2 comments:
Great article, Sheldon. I forwarded it to my friend who's worked at Goldman Sachs for many years (not a high-level guy, but a very smart person), and thought you might find his reply interesting:
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I read that NYT article few days ago.
It is not well known that the Fed is a quasi-public organizaion. The chairman and the board of directors are appointed by the president, but then they actually report to the 12 regional fed banks (NY is the most important one). If you look at who are at the regional fed banks, they are stacked with bankers. In other words, the Fed really works for, and represents, the bankers.
Take a look at the NY federal banks board of directors: http://www.newyorkfed.org/aboutthefed/org_nydirectors.html
Look at class A, all bankers, class B it's the GE guy (and GE financial is the biggest money earners for GE, that's why their stocks took a big dive along with all financials), and look at Class C, it's supposed to represent to PUBLIC (whatever that means), and the chairman of class C is Friedman, who was the ex-president of gs.
Thanks, Larry. As the Times said, "In theory, having financiers on the New York Fed’s board should help the president be Washington’s eyes and ears on Wall Street. But critics, including some current and former Federal Reserve officials, say the New York Fed is often more of a Wall Street mouthpiece than a cop."
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