White House downplays golf outing with Bain Capital lobbyist

[Octafish]

From the Not That There's Anything Wrong with That Department:



White House downplays golf outing with lobbyist

David Jackson
USA TODAY, May 19, 2014

The White House is dismissing criticism that President Obama's weekend golf outing included a prominent Washington lobbyist.

"I think he played a game of golf," said White House spokesman Jay Carney when asked if the Saturday foursome that included Joe O'Neill violates Obama's pledge to limit the access of lobbyists to the White House.

O'Neill is president and CEO of the firm Public Strategies Washington.

Among his clients: Bain Capital, the Mitt Romney private equity firm that Obama and aides criticized so heavily during the 2012 presidential campaign.

Obama and O'Neill played Saturday with former U.S. Trade representative Ron Kirk and CenterPoint Energy Chairman Milton Carroll at the Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Gainesville, Va.

CONTINUED...

http://www.usatoday.com/story/theoval/2014/05/19/obama-jay-carney-golf-lobbyist-joe-oneill-bain-capital/9290647/

I betcha they didn't talk tax policy until the 19th hole.

[leftyohiolib]

1. where's that picture of all those pols ( obama clinton lieberman bush'es erc.)

all laughing together

[Octafish]

12. This one?

Wow oh wow.

[leftyohiolib]

15. no it had about 30 people in it, republicans and dems all together laughing as if they were all in

on some big joke

[Aerows]

50. When it comes down to it

They all are and it is on the people of the world.

[PumpkinAle]

56. Sadly, the joke is on us. n/t

[TheBlackAdder]

2. Working on a deal to give Bain the $35 Billion USPS pension when it's sold? nt

[Octafish]

13. That hurts to think about.

The Post Office Was Targeted by Bain Vultures All Along

Via Liberaland. By: VegasJessie, 4/24/2014

The 109th United States Congress held a vote back in 2006 that did irreparable harm to one of the largest unions in the country and one of the most functional institutes of our government. A Republican Congress—acting at the behest of the Bush-Cheney administration—enacted a law that required the postal service to “pre-fund” retiree health benefits seventy-five years into the future. NO corporation has ever been asked to shoulder such insane financial burdens and Americans had no idea this was even happening. The US Post Office is one of the top employers of veterans. Yet the GOP has repeatedly slashed any means of assistance for the “troops” they claim to support. Not only did those brave men and women fight a senseless war without being properly equipped with safe gear, but their means of livelihood when they return to civilian life has been systematically eradicated by Republicans.

During the 2012 Presidential Campaign, Willard Romney touted his business acumen by boasting of Bain Capital’s retail success. Bain’s Staples Office Supply Stores were the shining example of the “noble” business of venture capitalism. Staples announced recently announced, in twenty-seven states, some of its stores will contain actual U.S. Post Offices.

Coincidentally, the sponsor of the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act was Republican Tom Davis of Virginia, an ardent supporter of Willard Romney. Obviously no stranger to corruption, he’s been linked to the K Street Project, a fundraising scandal linked to Tom Delay and Jack Abramoff. It truly is a very strange bill, which went under the radar in the House. On February 9, 2006, the Senate passed the bill. Not sure how they passed the bill, as there was not a recorded vote. The intent was to privatize the mail industry and destroy the Postal Union while enriching obscenely profitable corporations. Staples employees making minimum wage will be performing the tasks of the Postal Union workers while earning neither pensions nor benefits. This is another example of the privatizing of government industries for-profit while underhandedly cutting the throats of the American worker.

SOURCE: http://crooksandliars.com/2014/04/post-office-was-targeted-bain-capital

[Fearless]

24. +1000000!

[Rockyj]

54. WHY isn't this info SCREAMED off roof tops?

This is so frustrating & Obama is playing golf with them!?

[grasswire]

55. grrrrrr

What a disaster .

[Supersedeas]

83. these are the realities though

[LuvNewcastle]

3. He said he was going to limit access to the White House, not the golf course.

[Octafish]

20. True, that. Remember when President Obama went golfing with the head of UBS America in August, 2009?

THE GAME THAT GOES ON AND ON:

A SWISS BANK, A PRESIDENT, AND THE PERMANENT GOVERNMENT

By RUSS BAKER
Published: April 21, 2010

EXCERPT...

When most people criticize those aspects of government that seem most impervious to the democratic process, they cite the permanency and perceived self-interest of the mandarins of the Washington bureaucracy. But when it comes to real power, an ability to come out ahead no matter which party is in power, it’s hard to top certain financial institutions.

UBS is very much a part of that permanent government. Though not a household name in the United States, UBS is a major player in the Beltway game. During the 2008 campaign, while Robert Wolf was courting Democratic hopeful Obama, his UBS cohort, former Senator Phil Gramm, was working the other side of the street. As chairman of the Senate Banking Committee in the 1990s, Gramm, a corporate-friendly Texas Republican, played a key role in the deregulation of the banking industry, an act so central to the nation’s financial collapse. Since 2002, Gramm has been UBS Americas’ vice chairman. In 2008, he was the leading economics adviser for Obama’s opponent, John McCain—and even touted as a possible treasury secretary in a McCain administration.

The bottom line: UBS hedged its bets, and so had an inside track no matter which party took the White House. Thus, when Obama won, it was Wolf who ascended. The new president named the banker-donor to his White House Economic Advisory Board.

The important machinations behind this accrual of influence rarely get attention in the frenzied hustle of the news cycle. One reason is that they do not seem like news at all, since they are essentially woven deeply into the fabric of politics and government, thus hidden in plain sight. Another is that they are dauntingly complex.

SNIP...

In any case, it has become increasingly clear that tax evasion is but a piece of a troubling larger picture. The states of New York, Texas and Massachusetts sued the bank in 2008, accusing it of misleading investors about risks in its auction-rate securities market. UBS executives dumped their own holdings when the supposedly safe investments took a nosedive, yet continued to recommend them to customers. In Puerto Rico, a Bloomberg News reporter found, UBS had created its own closed-loop system for generating profits —it advised the Commonwealth to issue bonds, marketed the bonds to investors through UBS mutual funds, and then loaned the mutual funds money so they could buy the bonds. As James Cox, a Duke law professor and expert on finance and law said at the time, “I’ve never seen such a blatant series of conflicts of interest.”

CONTINUED...

http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-game-that-goes-on-and-on-a-swiss-bank-a-president-and-the-permanent-governement/19725?print=1

While I understand Mr. Wolf has since been "forced" out of UBS, the chumminess at the top of the heap should make clear why things have not changed for those of us in non-golfing society.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

25. Usually the GOPers use the President's golf outings as a point of criticism.

Is it just me or are they conspicuously silent in this instance?

[Enrique]

60. it conflicts with their message

it's hard to understand why uber capitalists would be golfing with a Maoist.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

62. When is a capitalist not a capitalist and a socialist not a socialist?

When they get together for government enforced profiteering.

[Nye Bevan]

4. Does anyone here really believe that Obama would change his policies,

based upon what someone said to him during a round of golf?

[Progressive dog]

6. You shouldn't have to ask that,

they either believe it or pretend to.

[Supersedeas]

85. good point

[msongs]

11. they did the deal before the game. 6 years before the game maybe nt

[Octafish]

23. When do non-golf class citizens get to talk to him?

Marching Toward Greater Inequality

The Tax Havens of the Super-Rich

by SAM PIZZIGATI
CounterPunch
July 30, 2012

EXCERPT...

Maybe the rich are simply living large, wasting their astronomical incomes on caviar, private jets, and other luxuries. But wasteful consumption can’t explain the inequality paradox either. Deep pockets in America’s top 0.01 percent could shell out $5,000 every single day of the year and still have 93 percent of their annual incomes left to spend.

So what in the end can explain the inequality paradox? The London-based Tax Justice Network has an answer. The world’s super rich, the group has just reported, are squirreling away — and concealing — phenomenal quantities of their cash in secret global tax havens.

The Network’s new tax-dodging study “conservatively” computes the total wealth stashed in these havens at $21 trillion. That total could plausibly run as high as $32 trillion.

Americans make up, we know from previous research, almost a third of the global super rich. That would put the American share of unrecorded offshore assets as high as $10 trillion.

CONTINUED w LINKS...

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/07/30/the-tax-havens-of-the-super-rich/

[arcane1]

27. Unless these people are old pals of his, they are there to influence him.

I doubt the chairman of CenterPoint Energy just happened to randomly be there at the same time as the president, and thought "hey, I'll crash their party!"

[woo me with science]

53. Oh, my WORD.

This is the most perfect Third Way post today. Seriously. This is even better than "Obama is a progressive!"



The harvest of corporate coziness: http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=4976642

[TheKentuckian]

57. No, more like he is given his policies during such events.

[pa28]

59. His policies will remain exactly the same.

This group is perfectly fine with his existing policies I'm sure.

[laundry_queen]

77. HA!

You don't know very many business people do you?

[tularetom]

5. You know what, I don't get too pissed off over this stuff

If he's the president, and he's in Washington, and he's playing golf, the chances are pretty goddamn good that he's doing it with somebody I would consider an asshole.

He's isn't going to play golf with homeless people, Occupy protestors, unemployed veterans, or anybody else who might happen to tell him how the cow ate the cabbage. Those kind of people don't play golf.

It might be nice if, just once in a while, he acknowledged the people who actually voted for him instead of always rubbing elbows with members of the 1% who are just trying to get more freebies from him anyway. Nice, yes, but I don't really expect to see it happen.

[GeorgeGist]

10. Well maybe if more people got pissed off ...

he'd pay attention to the homeless, unemployed etc.

Who needs enemies?

[woo me with science]

47. +100000

I call the constant bids for passivity, "Third Way Blase."

The corporate Third Way is a malignant, infiltrating cancer in our party.

[zipplewrath]

76. yeah I do

In fact, this gives me a great idea to write him and suggest that just maybe he would like to play a round with someone a bit left of him. Maybe a bit more than just a bit.

[treestar]

82. He often talks to regular people

They are often invited to the White House. Or he is talking to them on the campaign trail. He is often talking of what people he talked to said to him.

[tkmorris]

7. "Tell me your companions, and I will tell you what you are."

Fucking hell, I can't believe we still act like there's a debate to be had whether our government has been sold. It's just completely ridiculous at this point.

[SamKnause]

8. Exactly !!!

[woo me with science]

22. [phone]

[Phlem]

41. Amen!

[840high]

68. yep

[Capt. Obvious]

9. Cut the crap!

The President is a progressive. The most progressive President ever.

[woo me with science]

37. I see what you did there.

Pretty disgusting, the garbage we are fed.

[Phlem]

45. Dude!

I was pissed cause they deleted one of my posts that, as someone else said "would have left a mark". They're organized!

But this. I can't stop giggling.

Thanks bud!



-p

[frylock]

63. ha!

[pa28]

65. I know, right?

This OP just lost the 2014 election. Thanks liberals.

[SidDithers]

14. Spin it!...

Sid

[truebrit71]

26. You really just don't get it do you?

...

[SidDithers]

29. Oh, I absolutely get it...nt

Sid

[truebrit71]

31. What's that??...'Ignored' alot...??

Why yes......yes you do!!!

[Octafish]

28. Do you have similar problems in Canada?

Would meeting with representatives of billionaires affect your vote?

Does it seem to you that the well-heeled are well-represented in Washington?

Are the wealthy evading paying their fair share of taxes?

If you answered "Yes" or "No" to any of these questions, here's help:

Tax Offshore Wealth Sitting In First World Banks

James S. Henry
07.01.10, 09:00 AM EDT
Forbes Magazine dated July 19, 2010

Let's tax offshore private wealth.

How can we get the world's wealthiest scoundrels--arms dealers, dictators, drug barons, tax evaders--to help us pay for the soaring costs of deficits, disaster relief, climate change and development? Simple: Levy a modest withholding tax on untaxed private offshore loot.

Many aboveground economies around the world are struggling, but the economic underground is booming. By my estimate, there is $15 trillion to $20 trillion in private wealth sitting offshore in bank accounts, brokerage accounts and hedge fund portfolios, completely untaxed.

SNIP...

This wealth is concentrated. Nearly half of it is owned by 91,000 people--0.001% of the world's population. Ninety-five percent is owned by the planet's wealthiest 10 million people.

SNIP...

Is it feasible? Yes. The majority of offshore wealth is managed by 50 banks. As of September 2009 these banks accounted for $10.8 trillion of offshore assets--72% of the industry's total. The busiest 10 of them manage 40%.

CONTINUED....

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2010/0719/opinions-taxation-tax-havens-banking-on-my-mind.html

The questions weren't just rhetorical. What do you think, SidDithers? Got any opinions on the influence of money on democracy?

[SidDithers]

33. No. We don't have nearly the same level...

of perpetual manufactured outrage that you do.

Sid

[Octafish]

38. If I manufactured outrage, I'd send Obama out golfing with billionaire's toadies.

Now, if Obama goes golfing with billionaire's toadies, I'll report that.

Why does that bother you?

[SidDithers]

49. I look forward to your threads...

outraged at how much vacation time Obama is taking.

Sid

[Octafish]

66. You still have never answered why you care so much about what I post.

http://upload.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2386529

Now that's an outrage.

[JEB]

39. There you go again linking to a conspiracy site.

Forbes is well known as ....oops, attacking the wrong messenger. My bad.

[Capt. Obvious]

44. Stephen Harper doesn't golf

[neverforget]

58. He has no opinion. Only snark.

It's how he rolls.

[FreakinDJ]

16. Washington - where Money always Wins

[Octafish]

32. It's made me think of voting for old fashioned Democrats only.

When billionaire Penny Pritzker gets to fashion the TPP as Commerce Secretary, I have to think that the administration will not be considering the perspectives of the non-wealthy any time soon. This is a shame, as that is what I believe a Democratic administration should be doing.

[Phlem]

46. +100000!!

Thank you for saying that. In 100% agreement.

-p

[City Lights]

17. We need a lobbyist for the people. nt

[Octafish]

36. The wealthiest nation in history and wealth's holders need more tax breaks.

While Fox Demonizes The Poor, The Rich Skip Out On Income Taxes

Media Matters
Blog ››› May 30, 2012

A great deal of Fox News' on-air resources are devoted to insulating the wealthy from the ignominy of criticism. Watch a few hours of Fox and you'll see reports on how the rich -- or "so-called rich," per the hilarious network parlance -- are an incorruptible force for good who suffer mightily under the onerous burden of the lowest tax rates since Reagan.

The real villains in Fox News' economic calculus are the poor. In the Murdoch network's view, the economically disadvantaged lack shame and "the richness of spirit." They're "ruining the economy" with their "entitlement mindset" and "laziness," and have no reason to complain given that they own microwaves. This morning the networked teased John Stossel's appearance on The O'Reilly Factor tonight, during which the mustachioed glibertarian prop comic will explain how the American poor are "living the good life."

But more than anything else, Fox News complains that the poor just don't pay enough in taxes. "Forty-six percent of Americans pay no taxes at all," is a common, inaccurate refrain from Fox hosts. According to chief poor-bashing correspondent Stuart Varney, the impoverished can take advantage of the earned income tax credit just like drug dealers.

While Fox focuses on the poor, more and more of America's wealthiest are sloughing off what tax burden they have. A new report from the IRS found that in 2009, over 20,000 U.S. households earning over $200,000 annually paid no income taxes in the U.S., and over 10,000 households "showed no worldwide income tax liability." Those 20,000 households represent 0.53 percent of all top earners, an increase from 0.51 percent in 2008, and "more than double the percentages of any other year in the study's history." That speaks to a dysfunctional tax system. Forget all the talk about "fair share" -- these people are paying nothing in income taxes.

CONTINUED with videos n links...

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2012/05/30/while-fox-demonizes-the-poor-the-rich-skip-out/186720

Agree, City Lights. Something is too far right with that picture.

[SammyWinstonJack]

18. Lifestyles of the Rich and Powerful.

[Octafish]

48. Now that you mention it, this wasn't on my television screen...

Nutwork tee vee typically does all it can to put down President Obama and almost never mentions the working class perspective, which implies a higher agenda prevailed for Wall Street.

[G_j]

19. ever see a coal miner, teacher, hospital worker

etc. playing golf with a prez?

[Octafish]

67. Not many even get to shake their hands.

[JDPriestly]

21. K&R. There is no excuse for this.

If he wanted to meet with a lobbyist for Bain Capital he could have at least done it through some surrogate. This is an open admission that his campaign promises were worthless. For shame, Mr. President.

[pangaia]

43. +1000

[WillyT]

30. Oh... The Next 2.5 Years Are Gonna Be A Hoot.

& Rec !!!

[Oilwellian]

34. After November, 2014...

The sky is the limit! Woo hoo!

[JEB]

35. I guess he

really does pal around with terrorists.

[riqster]

40. Bad form.

Gives a bad impression. Obama is smarter than this.

[woo me with science]

42. Reflected in bad policies.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=4976642

[TBF]

51. Apparently not - and what does he care

only 2 more years to go and then he'll be off giving speeches for $$$ to the same folks he's playing golf with now. Nice work if you can get it ...

[oneofthe99]

52. you got that right

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024933096

[pa28]

61. I'd love to see him play golf with Lori Wallach or Robert Reich sometime.

Then again I'm sure they absolutely suck at golf compared to your average Bain Capital lobbyist.

[frylock]

64. it's only a two-minute prayer!

[Octafish]

72. That puts the ''End Game Memo'' in a whole new light.

Larry Summers
and the Secret "End-Game" Memo

Thursday, August 22, 2013
By Greg Palast for Vice Magazine

When a little birdie dropped the End Game memo through my window, its content was so explosive, so sick and plain evil, I just couldn't believe it.

The Memo confirmed every conspiracy freak's fantasy: that in the late 1990s, the top US Treasury officials secretly conspired with a small cabal of banker big-shots to rip apart financial regulation across the planet. When you see 26.3% unemployment in Spain, desperation and hunger in Greece, riots in Indonesia and Detroit in bankruptcy, go back to this End Game memo, the genesis of the blood and tears.

The Treasury official playing the bankers' secret End Game was Larry Summers. Today, Summers is Barack Obama's leading choice for Chairman of the US Federal Reserve, the world's central bank. If the confidential memo is authentic, then Summers shouldn't be serving on the Fed, he should be serving hard time in some dungeon reserved for the criminally insane of the finance world.

SNIP...

While billions of sorry souls are still hurting from worldwide banker-made disaster, Rubin and Summers didn't do too badly. Rubin's deregulation of banks had permitted the creation of a financial monstrosity called "Citigroup." Within weeks of leaving office, Rubin was named director, then Chairman of Citigroup—which went bankrupt while managing to pay Rubin a total of $126 million.

Then Rubin took on another post: as key campaign benefactor to a young State Senator, Barack Obama. Only days after his election as President, Obama, at Rubin's insistence, gave Summers the odd post of US "Economics Tsar" and made Geithner his Tsarina (that is, Secretary of Treasury). In 2010, Summers gave up his royalist robes to return to "consulting" for Citibank and other creatures of bank deregulation whose payments have raised Summers' net worth by $31 million since the "end-game" memo.

CONTINUED...

http://www.gregpalast.com/larry-summers-and-the-secret-end-game-memo/

[Scuba]

69. And Frank's curtain is pulled back a little further.

[Octafish]

70. The Wizard of Plutonomy assumed the form of one Larry Summers...

Evidence of an American Plutocracy: The Larry Summers Story

By Matthew Skomarovsky
LilSis.org
Jan 10, 2011 at 19:31 EST

EXCERPT...

Another new business model Rubin and Summers made possible was Enron. Rubin had known Enron well through Goldman Sachs’s financing of the company, and recused himself from matters relating to Enron in his first year on the Clinton team. He and Summers went on to craft policies at Treasury that were essential to Enron’s lucrative energy trading business, and they were in touch with Enron executives and lobbyists all the while. Enron meanwhile won $2.4 billion in foreign development deals from Clinton’s Export-Import Bank, then run by Kenneth Brody, a former protege of Rubin’s at Goldman Sachs.

Soon after Rubin joined Citigroup, its investment banking division picked up Enron as a client, and Citigroup went on to become Enron’s largest creditor, loaning almost $1 billion to the company. As revelations of massive accounting fraud and market manipulation emerged over the next years and threatened to bring down the energy company, Rubin and Summers intervened. While Enron’s rigged electricity prices in California were causing unprecedented blackouts, Summers urged Governor Gray Davis to avoid criticizing Enron and recommended further deregulatory measures. Rubin was an official advisor to Gov. Davis on energy market issues at the time, while Citigroup was heavily invested in Enron’s fraudulent California business, and he too likely put pressure on the Governor to lay off Enron. Rubin also pulled strings at Bush’s Treasury Department in late 2001, calling a former employee to see if Treasury could ask the major rating agencies not to downgrade Enron, and Rubin also lobbied the rating agencies directly. (In all likelihood he made similar attempts in behalf of Citigroup during the recent financial crisis.) Their efforts ultimately failed, Enron went bust, thousands of jobs and pensions were destroyed, and its top executives went to jail. It’s hard to believe, but there was some white-collar justice back then.

SNIP...

Summers also starting showing up around the Hamilton Project, which Rubin had just founded with hedge fund manager Roger Altman. Altman was another Clinton official who had come from Wall Street, following billionaire Peter Peterson from Lehman Brothers to Blackstone Group, and he left Washington to found a major hedge fund in 1996. The Hamilton Project is housed in the Brookings Institution, a prestigious corporate-funded policy discussion center that serves as a sort of staging ground for Democratic elites in transition between government, academic, and business positions. The Hamilton Project would go on to host, more specifically, past and future Democratic Party officials friendly to the financial industry, and to produce a stream of similarly minded policy papers. Then-Senator Obama was the featured political speaker at Hamilton’s inaugural event in April 2006.

Summers joined major banking and political elites on Hamilton’s Advisory Council and appeared at many Hamilton events. During a discussion of the financial crisis in 2008, Summers was asked about his role in repealing Glass-Stegall, the law that forbade commercial and investment banking mergers like Citigroup. “I think it was the right thing to do,” he responded, noting that the repeal of Glass-Stegall made possible a wave of similar mergers during the recent financial crisis, such as Bank of America’s takeover of Merrill Lynch. He was arguing, in effect, that financial deregulation did not cause the financial crisis, it actually solved it. “We need a regulatory system as modern as the markets,” said Summers — quoting Rubin, who was in the room. “We need a hen house as modern as the food chain,” said the fox.

CONTINUED...

http://blog.littlesis.org/2011/01/10/evidence-of-an-american-plutocracy-the-larry-summers-story/

[Scuba]

71. As George said, "It's a big club, and you ain't in it."

[bahrbearian]

73. So he found his comfortable shoes and went golfing.

[woo me with science]

84. +100000000000000000

Some shoes are just more comfortable than others, I guess.

[JoeyT]

74. Time for the people that screamed

non-fucking-stop about Romney being affiliated with Bain (And rightly so) to pretend cozying up to them totally isn't a big deal.

[IronLionZion]

75. They should have played basketball instead?

The president of the United states meets with all sorts of people. There are countless pics of him meeting with regular folks all the time.



For anyone who didn't know. While Bain has done plenty of bad things to be outraged about, they are also big investors in hospitals and clinics and have opened lots of them across America expanding access to affordable health care. America needs more health care providers.

[TBF]

78. We do not need investors or insurance cos -

we need universal single payer health care. That is the piece that POTUS doesn't understand.

[IronLionZion]

80. Who's going to provide the care?

Single payer is only the payment system.

[TBF]

81. We have VA hospitals -

expand them. Anything that involves "Bain Capital" is unnecessary.

[Puzzledtraveller]

79. He's setting them up for his master stroke chess move dontcha know?