Yet another lame NPR interview...

[A comment that I made at NPR's website on April 29, 2010, right after hearing the interview...]

I listened with interest this afternoon as NPR interviewed the CEO of Goldman Sachs, Lloyd Blankfein, on the heels of his grueling testimony before Congress yesterday. It was a rare opportunity to put some tough, direct questions to the head of the corporation that is more responsible than any other for causing the current US recession (not to mention their underhanded dealings on the international scene; they are behind Greece's current difficulties as well). Not surprisingly, the NPR reporter was not up to the task, and let this duplicitous scoundrel off with a mere rap of his knuckles.

The main point that Mr Blankfein tried to use to defend his company is that they are constantly financing US business and government activities that help build and maintain our economy; that is only partially true, and hides an ugly truth. The glaring reality is that over 70 percent of Goldman Sachs' profits come from trading for their own accounts. This is not investing in the real economy; it is like a cancer that is sucking the life out of its host body.

If the NPR reporter had bothered to do a little research prior to the interview, she would have found that Goldman Sachs is foremost in high frequency trading by having their own supercomputers located right at the exchanges, allowing them to front-end the trading market and skim off profits with near certainty, with their milliseconds of trade execution advantage. Indeed, recent evidence indicates that around 70 percent of all trading activity is done by this type of automated trading. If that is not newsworthy, I don't know what is; the global financial investment sector has become one giant casino, and it will be our undoing yet again if it is not brought under control, and soon.

So, another lame interview from NPR passes for "news"...and the American people are kept in the dark once more. When there was a golden opportunity to shed some light on one of its chief denizens of darkness, the public is shielded once again from the ugly truth that Wall Street is a predatory and vicious institution that cares nothing for the real welfare of US citizens and their communities. They care for one thing: their lust for profits that enrich only them.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Community Rights: Still Waiting for its Day in Court

[This is an editoral I submitted March 6, 2017 to local newspapers in time for the Lafayette City Council vote on a Climate Bill of Rights ordinance on the following day.] With the conservative front pressing its agenda across the country, Broomfield's city council hesitating to pass their own fracking moratorium and prevent imminent drilling in its residential neighborhoods, and Colorado's AG suing Boulder Country over its moratorium on fracking, it is high time that the nascent community rights movement raise its head and tell the Colorado judiciary: we are still waiting for our day in court. I am going to tell a story here, a story about how the oil and gas trade representation group, the Colorado Oil and Gas Association, sought, and succeeded, in stopping a potent legal threat to its ability to control Colorado government at all levels; about how justice was not served in a Boulder court, and how the public was fooled into thinking it was; and about some legal slight of
Read more

In Support of Wisconsin

[This is a speech I gave on the steps of the Denver capital building on Saturday, February 26, 2011 to about 1,000 to 3,000 people (estimates varied) who had gathered in response to MoveOn's call for a Saturday protest rally in support of the Wisconsin protests. I was the last of five speakers, and the crowd had been led in some group chants in between the speakers, so they were pretty primed by the time I spoke. At many points in my speech, I had to stop until the crowd's yelling in support had quieted down. It was a brisk, sunny Colorado day, with the snow capped peaks of the Rockies in the distance to the west -- it was a beautiful and inspiring event!] In Support of Wisconsin by Rick Casey February 26, 2011 Hello to all you protesters out there standing in support of Wisconsin! It's a great day here in Colorado to be taking a stand for democracy, isn't it? I want to say a few words today in support of all those brave people in Wisconsin that are also taking a
Read more

An inspiring story....about a dispiriting situation

Last Sunday, December 16, 2018, the Sunday New York Times published an inspiring story, which touches on many themes; you can read it at:  Retraining Workers for New Jobs and New Lives After Prison and Addiction What struck me about the article was: how the twin problems of drug addiction and doing prison time are a common, downward spiral in much of rural America how few public resources there are to deal with it the success of the hero of the story, Tony Simpson, exemplifies a winning strategy to deal with these twin problems that could be replicated elsewhere Basically, Mr Simpson, a local entrepreneur, already successful in another line of business, developed his own plan to help turn around his community: create a company that can export a product (trailers), train local people coming out of prison and/or drug rehab to work in it, and spend money and time -- a lot of money and time -- providing programs of assistance in doing just that. The goal of the program, which
Read more