Jewish Billionaire

[Large Sarge]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qg5KLjcCmVk&feature=player_embedded

[seaurchin1]

That is one ugly bunch of people :puke

[philo beddoe]

I noticed that freak meg whitman....great choice we have in california whitman the joo or poizner the joo

[EE_]

I noticed that freak meg whitman....great choice we have in california whitman the joo or poizner the joo


Candidate Meg Whitman touts her experience at eBay, the online auction house that made her rich, but her career and personal fortune are entwined with another company: the Goldman Sachs investment bank, a major player in public finance in the state she wants to lead.

Whitman’s relationship with the giant Wall Street firm -- as investor, corporate director and recipient of both insider stock deals and campaign donations -- could pose conflicts of interest if the Republican front-runner is elected governor of California, critics say.

From 1998 to 2002, while she was CEO of eBay, Whitman helped steer millions of dollars of her company’s investment banking business to Goldman, court records show.

In 2001, Goldman put Whitman on its corporate board, paying her an estimated $475,000 for little more than a year of part-time service. The company also gave her insider access to the initial public offerings of hot stocks worth millions, according to the records.

Whitman left the board in 2002 after she was targeted in a congressional probe of bond underwriters and “spinning” — a financial maneuver, now banned, in which Goldman and other firms allegedly traded access to hot IPOs for bond business. Whitman later settled a shareholder lawsuit related to profits she and other execs made from buying the IPOs.

In recent years, Whitman has kept part of her fortune, estimated by Forbes magazine to be $1.2 billion, in investment funds managed by Goldman, her financial disclosure report indicates. For her campaign, she’s received $105,500 in donations from Goldman executives, state records show.

Meanwhile, Goldman is a major player in California state finance. It has been the underwriter of $78.9 billion in bonds issued by the state since 2006, records show, second only to Merrill Lynch, now a division of Bank of America, which was underwriter of $79.3 billion in the same period.

Goldman was underwriter of more than 2 percent of the bonds issued by the state in the past five years, the records show. State pension funds, meanwhile, have invested more than $1.3 billion with Goldman.

The firm has sought other state business as well. In 2007, Goldman and the now-defunct Lehman Brothers investment bank pitched Gov. Schwarzenegger on an ambitious plan to boost state revenues by privatizing the California Lottery, according to news reports.

Goldman also urged the governor to raise money by selling EdFund, the state agency that insures student loans. Schwarzenegger expressed interest, but the ideas weren’t carried out.

Conflicts could arise

With Goldman active on so many state issues, Whitman would face “a pile of potential conflicts of interest” if elected governor, said Doug Heller, spokesman for Consumer Watchdog of Santa Monica.

Whitman declined to be interviewed for this story, but her campaign lawyer said conflict concerns were overblown. If elected, Whitman will sell her Goldman stock and put the rest of her portfolio, including her Goldman-managed investments, into a blind trust, the lawyer, Tom Hiltachk said in a written statement.

That will “put further distance between Meg’s assets and her duties as governor,” he wrote. Meanwhile, Whitman will “scrupulously” follow state law to avoid conflicts, he wrote.

Eric Jackson, founder of the Ironfire Capital hedge fund in Florida and an advocate of corporate reform, said concerns could arise even after Whitman sold her Goldman holdings. Given its long relationship with Whitman, Goldman would likely enjoy “access, and being able to make their case in terms of lobbying or certain outcomes that benefit them,” he said.

Whitman’s association with Goldman also raises questions about her values and judgment, some Wall Street reformers say.

While Whitman was on Goldman’s board, she served on the compensation committee, which approved multi-million dollar bonus packages for then-CEO Henry Paulson and his top aides.

Also during Whitman’s service, Goldman invested $140 billion into mortgage-backed securities. Years after she left, the firm sold off $135 billion in bonds tied to risky home loans, according to published accounts, essentially unloading the assets before the market plunged and sent the nation into economic crisis.

Goldman’s dealings in the ramp-up to world recession have made the firm a lightning rod for criticism, especially as it has rebounded with record profits while the national unemployment rate hovers around 10 percent.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2010/04/12/meg_whitman_goldman_sachs