Turns out Secretary of the Treasury (Turbo Tax Cheat Geithner) speaks quite regularly (VERY regularly) with 3 companies specifically: Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and JPMorgan Chase. (All in top 5 of bailout TARP fund recipients)
And interestingly enough the new financial regulations being developed by Geithner and Barney Frank conveniently leave a loophole that would allow these companies exemption from the new rules.
Is this simply a coincidence, or are the bankers basically writing the new rules?? (making sure to leave loopholes for themselves)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/08/bloomberg-reports-derivat_n_313914.html
Hey kids! Were you holding out hope that someone might do something to robustly regulate the derivatives market that wrought such wrack and ruin to the global economy? Ha, ha, that’s adorable! Tina Seeley and Dawn Kopecki report for Bloomberg today that "Legislation by Representative Barney Frank to tighten derivatives regulation contains an exemption that may let most financial firms escape new collateral and disclosure rules." Great!
Here’s where the specific exemption lies:
A plan offered by the Obama administration would subject all swaps dealers and "major market participants" to new regulations for capital, business conduct, record-keeping and reporting. [Representative Barney] Frank’s version would exempt corporations from that definition if they use derivatives for "risk management" purposes.
While Frank’s proposal is a "step in the right direction," its "ambiguous" definition of risk management may leave a large number of corporations unregulated, Henry T.C. Hu, director of the SEC’s new division of risk, strategy and financial innovation, told the committee.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/08/geithner-talks-to-select-_n_313612.html
When they call, Geithner answers. He has spoken with them immediately after hanging up with President Barack Obama and before heading up to Capitol Hill, between phone calls with senators and after talking with the Federal Reserve chairman, according to a review by The Associated Press of seven months of his appointment calendars.
The calendars, obtained by the AP under the Freedom of Information Act, offer a behind-the-scenes glimpse at the continued influence of three companies – Citigroup Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. – whose executives can reach the nation’s most powerful economic official on the phone, sometimes several times a day.
There is nothing inherently wrong with senior Treasury Department officials speaking regularly with industry executives, or even with the secretary keeping tabs on the market’s biggest players, even though critics say Geithner risks succumbing too much to these bankers’ self-interested worldview………..In the first seven months of Geithner’s tenure, his calendars reflect at least 80 contacts with Blankfein, Dimon, Citigroup Chairman Richard Parsons or Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit.
Geithner had more contacts with Citigroup than he did with Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., the lawmaker leading the effort to approve Geithner’s overhaul of the financial system. Geithner’s contacts with Blankfein alone outnumber his contacts with Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., chairman of the Senate Banking Committee.