Does Paulson Still Own Shares of Goldman?

[cowpip 10]

I'm not an equity trader, so I'm not aware of the tools that can be used to figure this out. But I'm dying to know if King Henry, by chance, still owns shares in Goldman Sachs?

 

If he does, can anyone tell me how many shares he owns?

 

Is it possible that his intentions contain more than "national best interests" at heart? Is it possible that he is also going to profit enormously if the bailout allows Goldman to make a killing?

 

I'm just a wee bit concerned about a conflict of interest with his role as the "master banker" right now. Is it justified, or did he have to relinquish his shares when he took the Treasury role?

[MidKnight 12]

Hi cowpip,

 

Yesterday bloomberg disclosed the value of his GS holdings. Stock and options total was nearly 1bln I believe. Talk about a vested interest huh.

[cowpip 10]

Holy crap! REALLY??? No kidding. So it really is possible that he is making bad decisions to help keep his own investment alive. Hmmm.... very interesting.

 

Thanks very much for the info, MidKnight. Much appreciated.

[cowpip 10]

I wonder if his stocks and options are ever-present in his mind. Or maybe his wife is driving the boat?

[thrunner 10]

I don't know where do you get your facts, and understandably no one at the Treasury or the Fed has too much credibility right now, but Paulson should have had divested himself of GS holdings back in June 2006.

 

Last update: 2:12 p.m. EDT June 30, 2006

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) - Former Goldman Sachs CEO Henry Paulson filed to sell about $500 million worth of Goldman Sachs stock late Thursday shortly after the U.S. Senate voted to confirm his appointment as U.S. Treasury Secretary.

Paulson filed to sell 3.23 million shares in a shelf offering of Goldman Sachs (GS:

 

135.63, +2.63, +2.0%) stock according to a prospectus filed with

regulators. Based on the bank's closing price of $152.50 on Thursday, the stock is worth about $492 million.

The banking chieftain is unloading the shares to adhere to conflict-of-interest rules.

[cowpip 10]

That's what I figured he should have had to do. Thanks for that. However, does he have any stock or options left in the company (or did he build any up after having left)? I would assume conflict of interest rules would forbid that, but do the rules permit the ownership of a minimum number of shares? Hopefully he had to divest them all.

[cowpip 10]

Ok, I found it on the net now. He had 3.23 million shares and was required (along with his wife) to divest all of the shares prior to taking office. BUT, he was allowed to reinvest the proceeds into government approved mutual funds or treasuries to avoid a tax hit. Given the market turmoil, if he would have invested there, is it possible he may still be feeling a pinch?

 

PS: I don't know if he reinvested in mutuals or other government-allowed entities.

[MidKnight 12]

Sorry for the bad info above...I guess what I read in my brief morning skim read was what his holdings were when he was with GS. My apologies. The morning news skim is a speed read glance at best...

 

All my best,

MK

[Chips 10]

cowpip - Exactly where on the net did you find the info re Paulson having to divest himself of all GS assets before taking office?

[cowpip 10]

cowpip - Exactly where on the net did you find the info re Paulson having to divest himself of all GS assets before taking office?

 

You can find it in numerous places, but here is where I specifically found it:

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/ousivMolt/idUSTRE48P8UK20080926?sp=true

... about the third paragraph down.

[Chips 10]

Thanks, cowpip. I don't know why it still feels like government of Goldman-Sachs, by Goldman-Sachs and for Goldman-Sachs. In the Reuters article you referenced, the "That some sort of action is needed to rescue the financial system from itself is hardly a point of contention." comment was interesting, considering that constituents' communications to their elected representatives ran about 100 to 1 against the bailout.

[cowpip 10]

We aren't living in a democracy anymore. It's some sort of bastardized version of democracy - socialized democracy - something. It's sick, whatever it has become. And the media is just loving it. Of course, they're also muppets.

 

And now we have Geithner named to be Treasury secretary. The devil himself. Couldn't Obama find someone in the population who has not been formed in the likeness of the Fed and Treasury? I swear, he must have been pulled from the same mud.

 

The markets are responding positively to this, but my gut says he's just another cog in the socialistic wheel that the powers-that-be are secretly putting together. Man, I hate sounding conspiratorial, but this environment is so surreal that I just wish I'd wake up from this bad dream.

[Chips 10]

They're bold enough now to be putting together that socialistic wheel publicly, gathering equity as they rescue, and even flat out projecting government takeover of 401K's and pensions. I'm afraid your - our! - bad dream is past the point of no return, toward nightmare. Socially, it would be called rape. Financially, we've been gangbanked.

[cowpip 10]

They're bold enough now to be putting together that socialistic wheel publicly, gathering equity as they rescue, and even flat out projecting government takeover of 401K's and pensions. I'm afraid your - our! - bad dream is past the point of no return, toward nightmare. Socially, it would be called rape. Financially, we've been gangbanked.

 

Gangbanked!! LOL! THAT's a good word for it! I'll have to remember that one. So true.

 

Chains and shackles are already being placed on the witless public, and no one seems to mind. Lack of a good liber education will do that.

 

Geithner has been raised by the Fed. I even heard someone from the Fed say (I can't remember who) that they have "taken him under their wing as a rising star." They've been raising him specifically for this purpose. Geithner will be in control of the Treasury (he will hold the wallet of the Nation now). Bernanke is trying to spend his way out of this hell hole that Greenspan and the Fed put us in. The Fed's balance sheet has exploded from somewhere around 800 billion before this crisis kicked in, to (as of yesterday) over 2 TRILLION. And we're still sinking.

 

So what will Bernanke do? The answer is clear: INCREASE THE BALANCE SHEET SOME MORE. But to do that will require close coordination with the Treasury. They needed a point-man inside the Treasury so that cash can be unleashed to the Fed with impunity. What better man for the job than Timothy Geithner. I have no doubt he will do anything to help the Fed. Anything at all. Absolutely anything. And without scruples. If you thought Paulson was tricky and manipulative, you just wait and see. Geithner is the king-master of manipulation. He'll do exceedingly well as a Paulson look-a-like.

 

So it looks like the Fed has essentially accomplished their goal: Create a crisis so severe that fixing it would require taking ownership of every major financial and mortgage institution and in the United States and the major manufacturing base as well. Since the Fed is a PRIVATE institution, independent of the government, they would obtain sufficient power to control the agenda of the nation and would even have leverage over the individuals in the country through their ownership in the mortgage markets, making the President of the United States nothing more than a puppet to the Fed President and their controlling board.

 

Think about it. Who is paying for everyone's pay-checks now? Since the Fed entered the commercial-backed paper market, THE FED IS. They're now YOUR boss. Without them, corporate institutions would not be able to payout salaries because they couldn't obtain the short-term loans to do so. Has the problem eased? No. If the Fed left the market now, what would happen? You'd lose your job. So who controls whether you can pay your bills and eat tommorrow? The FED does! Unfortunately, we're all led to believe that they're "saving us." Well, they are - through ownership.

 

Anyone who does not think the Fed has succeeded in a coup d'etat is really living in a dream world. They've accomplished it without an assassination, without military action, and without even announcing it. But they have accomplished it.

 

The fact that Geithner has now been chosen for the position of the Treasury suggests to me that the Fed is now officially and 100% in control of EVERYTHING, and the role of the President is nothing more than a figure-head.

 

A nice quiet (tall) island ruled by bartenders sounds pretty good to me right about now.

 

Does emigration sound attractive to anyone yet? Good luck. Getting out of the country is now almost as difficult as getting into the country now.

 

It's frightening how quickly a dream can turn into a nightmare... speaking of the American Dream, that is.

[Chips 10]

The nightmare does indeed seem to be integrating rather quickly. There are those out there who have seen this coming for decades, but the reality and speed of the disintegration is, I think, still a shock.

 

You're way ahead of me on this Geithner fellow; I'll have to come up to speed. But the Fed sprang from the bowels of the international banking elite, and is apparently simply fulfilling its destiny.

[cowpip 10]

There are those who are hailing Geithner as a good choice (mostly the media, who can't be trusted to give an unbiased opinion). He is, unquestionably, a very smart cookie. But he has been born from so deep inside the bowels of the Fed that I simply can't trust that what he will do will be for the benefit of the people as much as it will be for the benefit of the Fed and the banks that control the Fed. He is not only currently the President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, but he is also the VICE CHAIRMAN of the Federal Open Market Committee (Bernanke is the Chairman) where they set interest rates for the nation. He's so deeply imbedded in the Fed's thinking that you couldn't extract him from their bowels even with an elephant-sized enema.

 

If the Fed wants unrestricted access to the nations purse, Timothy is absolutely the best man for the job. I guess they've already had it with Paulson, so Timothy will just maintain the status quo.

[cowpip 10]

There are those who are hailing Geithner as a good choice (mostly the media, who can't be trusted to give an unbiased opinion). He is, unquestionably, a very smart cookie. But he has been born from so deep inside the bowels of the Fed that I simply can't trust that what he will do will be for the benefit of the people as much as it will be for the benefit of the Fed and the banks that control the Fed. He is not only currently the President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, but he is also the VICE CHAIRMAN of the Federal Open Market Committee (Bernanke is the Chairman) where they set interest rates for the nation. He's so deeply imbedded in the Fed's thinking that you couldn't extract him from their bowels even with an elephant-sized enema.

 

If the Fed wants unrestricted access to the nations purse, Timothy is absolutely the best man for the job. I guess they've already had it with Paulson, so Timothy will just maintain the status quo.

[cowpip 10]

Here's an interesting factoid:

 

http://www.ny.frb.org/aboutthefed/orgchart/geithner.html

 

He was put in place at the New York Fed in 2003. From 2003 until now, he has been about as close to the bad-behavior that got us all in this current financial crisis mess as you could get.

 

And yet they want HIM to fix it???? Would someone kindly tell me... WHY????

[Chips 10]

Unfortunately, the only thing that makes sense is that he's not really expected to fix anything. That is, unless it's the 'fix' as in, "OK, cauliflower ears, the fix is in, ya understand me?...ya go down in the 6th, and make it look good. On second thought, I don't care if you make it look good or not. Just go down. They'll never notice."

 

And am I imagining things, or are CFR members now filling virtually every position in the coming administration? It's the fulfillment of the mission of the Creature from Jekyll Island.