Citigroup and you

Friday, December 18th, 2009

Goldman Sachs operated behind the scenes, defrauding millions of little guys & gals.  Our government failed us then, and continues to fail us. Check out this link to see how the government we elected has let Citigroup have its way with us, even after we became owners.

It’s our fault.

Americans, and everyone else on the planet, must own up, grow up, and participate more fully in ownership and governance. This nation was founded on these principles, but mass markets want to play vs. pay. Paying is acting responsibly; shouldering the burden of change.

But my daughter’s expression of frustration with her bank’s behavior, in tossing it over the gate by the stairs, was the real inspiration for this blog.

There are better ways to solve an economic crisis. Geithner’s failure to protect our interest, and Zoe’s latest antic, both highlight that responsible adults must be owners. It takes maturity to build something lasting. Spread the word and help us build it.

Reason #4 Why GoHuman.com is: We must own the global problem and work to change our own community!

Zoe solves the credit crisis her way

Zoe solves the credit crisis her way

Reason #1; Reason #2; Reason #3; Reason #4

Next #5: The high cost of free; Reason #6; Reason #7; Reason #8; Reason #9; Reason #10; Reason #11; Reason #12

Spare change?

Monday, December 14th, 2009

I’ve written about Goldman Sachs and Piggies before, but my daughter inspired me today, feeding change to her pig.

Goldman’s is a story of greed, power and collusion. They fueled an enormous Real Estate bubble by creating  toxic assets from doomed mortgages.  They called them safe and sold them to trusting people.  Mountains of money from whitewashing risk wasn’t enough, it gets much worse.

Using AIG, they bet against their own products, cashing in on their customer’s misfortune.  Outraged yet?

Next, former Goldman CEO Henry Paulson fed them the Fed bailout.  After defrauding a billion people with the free market lie, they use our taxes to post record profits of $3.44 billion, while 10% (or 17%) are unemployed.

Read Matt Taibbi’s article to learn more.

When my 18 month-old saw daddy empty the bank from the bottom, she tried, but couldn’t.  She quickly got fed up feeding an unfair pig. Game over!

We can feed a different kind of change to rich pigs.  Stop giving them your allowance. Don’t let them enslave us with their free market.

Reason #3 Why GoHuman.com? A marketplace with change for everyone.

Teaching Zoe that Pigs eat your money!

Teaching Zoe that Pigs eat your money!

Reason #1; Reason #2;

Reason #4; Reason #5; Reason #6; Reason #7; Reason #8; Reason #9; Reason #10; Reason #11; Reason #12

Trust!

Wednesday, November 25th, 2009

I’ve quoted from Money and Markets before, but a recent issue has the perfect followup to my last blog on Goldman Sachs, edited here for brevity:

“The AIG rescue was the biggest taxpayer rip-off of all time, initiating a whole series of Wall Street taxpayer rip-offs…:

1. The U.S. Treasury bails out AIG, protecting AIG’s counterparties from direct losses they’d suffer if AIG failed.

2. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York pays off AIG’s creditors in full. As U.S. investors lose fortunes in financially viable companies, 16 major banks lose nothing in a company otherwise bankrupt, like…

3. Goldman Sachs, with Wall Street’s most extravagant executive bonuses in 2006 and 2007, and the most lavish payer of employee bonuses in 2009.

The money flow is clear:
* From taxpayers to AIG…
* From AIG to big Wall Street investment banks like Goldman Sachs…
* From Goldman Sachs to its employees in the form of lavish bonuses.”

The true cost to our institutions is erosion of trust.  Trust cannot be bought, it is built painstakingly, over time, through the delivery of promises and expectations.

Our economy may recover, in the short term, but the bankruptcy of trust will be much harder to undo.

GoHuman.com targets the underlying problems.  Change the way your world works, locally, at the level of basic human interaction.

Trust is rebuilt one handshake at a time!

Trust is rebuilt one handshake at a time!

Goldman Sachs’ apology is a good start

Thursday, November 19th, 2009

Decades ago Bob Dylan sang that the times were changing. There are again welcome indications of serious change underfoot. They are the real green shoots cropping up. One of the most recent ones I saw was the $500M apology from Goldman Sachs.

If anyone doubts that this is change, consider this. Goldman Sachs first blustered in defense of it’s profiteering coming out of the near global economic meltdown. They were obviously very happy to reap the spoils in a game of global chicken, in which the last one standing can make out like a bandit, if of course the horrifying crash is avoided.

They also took the standard arrogant stance that they deserved the out-sized bonuses they pay themselves for sucking enormous amounts of value out of the system, at the expense of those at the bottom, who’s blood they are harvesting as they squeeze the proverbial turnips.

But now they are apologizing. And in delivering the $500M to small businesses who have suffered from their exploitation of the so-called free markets and the resulting global economic serfdom.

So this is indeed a welcome start. It’s an indication that, ultimately, the world is programmed towards a new level of maturity. One in which the actual worth of each individual voice is equal, independent of their net worth.

Goldman Sachs