10 Most Corrupt US Capitalists

I left Vegas on Friday, but before I split, I took one final lap around the Skybridge Alternative Investment conference to say goodbye to a few people.

On the way out, I interrupt a tall old codger making time with Sandra, who works as Roubini’s Research Strategies Director. She is quite fetching, and since I was late, I bulled in, barking “Pardon the interruption.” I hurriedly air kiss her goodbye (European style, MWA! on each cheek), all the while thinking about my flight to San Diego. She introduces me to Lurch, but I’m only half listening, and I shake the old guy’s hand before bolting for my flight.

In the cab from the Bellagio to the airport, it dawns on me just what Sandra said: “Barry, this is Robert Rubin.” No bullshit, that’s who it was. He looked terrible; Clinton who just had quadruple bypass, looked much better.

Then again, Slick Willie’s biggest crime was sexual, not economic in nature. Whatever rationales Rubin’s conscious mind may have made about his role in the collapse, his subconscious knows better. And while no one else seems to be doing this, his subconscious is in the process of kicking his own ass. He seems to be slowly dying inside, at the behest of his own brain’s sense of guilt.

Regardless, I was reminded of that when I came across this list of the “corrupt corporate capitalists who leveraged their connections in government for their own personal profit . . . Today we know these opportunists as deregulatory hacks hellbent on making a profit at any cost.”

And look at this! Number 1 (with a bullet), turns out to be the former Treasury Secretary of State, whom I barely acknowledged while I was rudely interrupting his rap to a young hottie so I could say good bye to her:

America’s Ten Most Corrupt Capitalists

1. Robert Rubin
2. Alan Greenspan
3. Larry Summers
4. Phil and Wendy Gramm
5. Jamie Dimon
6. Stephen Friedman
7. Robert Steel
8. Henry Paulson
9. Warren Buffett

10. Goldman Sachs:

-Joshua Bolton, chief of staff for George W. Bush, was a Goldman man
-Current New York Fed President William Dudley is a Goldman man
-Current Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Gary Gensler has been a responsible regulator under Obama, but he was a deregulatory hawk during the Clinton years, and worked at Goldman for nearly two decades before that.
-A top aide to Timothy Geithner, Gene Sperling, is a Goldman man
-Current Treasury Undersecretary Robert Hormats is a Goldman man
-Current Treasury Chief of Staff Mark Patterson is a former Goldman lobbyist
-Former SEC Chairman Arthur Levitt is now a Goldman adviser
-Neel Kashkari, Henry Paulson’s deputy on TARP, was a Goldman man
-COO of the SEC Enforcement Division Adam Storch is a Goldman man
-Former Sen. John Corzine, D-N.J., was Goldman’s CEO before Henry Paulson
-Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., was a Goldman Vice President before he ran for Congress
-Former House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., now lobbies for Goldman

>

Source:
America’s Ten Most Corrupt Capitalists
Zach Carter
AlterNet May 13, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/story/146819/