May 5, 2016, Feliz cinco de mayo from the Vampire Squid
Happy fifth of May, boys and girls.
I'll be part of an awesome panel at NYC's "Left Forum," on May 21st at noon at John Jay College for those interested, entitled "Close Guantánamo Now or Move Guantánamo North?"
But ... enough about me. Where was I going with this post?
Ah yes... le plus ca change plus ce meme chose. Now from where would "anti-establishment" candidate and now all-but-certain Republican nominee Donald Trump draw his campaign's finance chairman (and likely Treasury secretary and director of economic policy, or at least the king-maker for whoever said person will be)? For starters, it should surprise no one that Hillary Clinton hired Gary Gensler for that post, Mr. Gensler a former "financial regulator," but more importantly, an alumni of the Goldman Sachs. In all seriousness-- no one doubts that Hillary was hardly going to be particularly critical of an organization paying her fabulously well to speak to it... in this case, the illustrious Vampire Squid (the speeches were said to ostensibly be cheerleading sessions... yes, that was a bit of a parody... but you get the idea... there are really good reasons we probably won't see any transcripts.)
Alright, alright... Hillary stands for "the status quo" such as it is, of which Wall Street and Goldman are very significant players-- and, to some, big parts of the problem. We get that.
Which brings up "anti-establishment" candidate, Billionaire [reputedly] Donald Trump. OK... Mr. Straight-talker, who called out both Crooked Hillary Clinton and Lyin' Ted Cruz on their respective Goldman Sachs connections.
Well, advantage those of us who believed that the Republican Establishment's antipathy to rich White rich male alleged Billionaire Donald Trump was, oh, a kabuki... Some of us think that the whinging on the part of GOP mandarins was overstated.. unsurprisingly, the RNC Chairman now urges "party unity" behind Mr. Trump.
And so, it seems... we had a point on that. The only actual anti-establishment candidate running (not counting Rand Paul, perhaps) was none other than Bernie Sanders, whose bashing of Goldman Sachs, as far as we know, remains sincere. We know that the Donald stands for "business as usual," because the Donald has selected one Steven Mnuchin, a hedge fund manager, to be his campaign finance chairman. And in what I don't consider a surprise, Mr. Mnuchin spent a significant part of his career at... wait for it... the Goldman Sachs, where he was a partner.
In all honesty, Goldman's rather high-profile representation in the top-ranks of government (two of the more recent Treasury secretaries, Bob Rubin and Hank Paulsen, were Goldman honchos, as was former New Jersey Governor, Senator and Super-Villain Jon Corzine) is actually a variety of transparency. There are obviously other major players in finance with significant roles in the direction of economic policy, and we can't readily identify them. And, of course, in the "deep state" realm of the national security apparatus, finding the actual loci of power is even more difficult, if not downright hazardous to your health and safety.
That said, however, and I say this un-ironically, it's actually a breath of fresh air that we now know where each of the two almost certain major party nominees are drawing their key financial advice from-- because it means, boys and girls, that as usual, voting for one of the two "business as usual" major party candidates will not only be futile for those wanting any kind of "change"... there's an argument that it's affirmatively dangerous.
You can't say you wasn't warned. iFeliz cinco de mayo, todos!