Murphy bullshits in announcing appointment of Lehman brother to NJEDA
/"Once you get to Wall Street, no matter how you got here, you give up your right to say you are a man of the people." (BBC: The Last Days Of Lehman Brothers)
Apparently, the above is true for everywhere other than New Jersey, where the last two elected Governors from the "party of the people" have been Wall Street operators of the worst kind. Yep, investment bankers.
Now that "man of the people" -- Goldman-Sachs' own Phil Murphy -- has brought on an alumnus of another great moral beacon... Lehman Brothers. Hey, these Wall Street brothers look out for each other. After all, they do speak the same language. Greed? Power? As only one "master of the universe" can to another?
Here is how Governor Murphy put it -- in his announcement of the appointment of Tim Sullivan to be Chief Executive Officer of the New Jersey Economic Development Authority:
"Prior to joining (New York) city government in 2010, Sullivan worked at Barclays Capital in New York as chief of staff to the Head of Global Investment Banking, which is a position he also held at Lehman Brothers prior to its acquisition by Barclays in 2008. He began his career in investment banking at Lehman Brothers in 2003 as a health care banker, focused on mergers and acquisitions, as well as capital markets transactions for leading companies in the managed care, biotechnology, and healthcare services sectors."
What? Oh, we see. The global economic meltdown was merely an "acquisition" of one company by another.
Well, there are alternative interpretations:
"On September 15, 2008, the firm (Lehman Brothers) filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection following the massive exodus of most of its clients, drastic losses in its stock, and devaluation of assets by credit rating agencies, largely sparked by Lehman's involvement in the subprime mortgage crisis, and its exposure to less liquid assets. Lehman's bankruptcy filing is the largest in U.S. history, and is thought to have played a major role in the unfolding of the late-2000's global financial crisis. On September 16, 2008, Lehman filed for bankruptcy. Global markets immediately plummeted, and systemic risk was uncorked. This market collapse also gave support to the 'Too Big To Fail' doctrine. The following day, Barclays announced its agreement to purchase, subject to regulatory approval, Lehman's North American investment-banking and trading divisions along with its New York headquarters building. On September 20, 2008, a revised version of that agreement was approved by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge James M. Peck. The next week, Nomura Holdings announced that it would acquire Lehman Brothers' franchise in the Asia-Pacific region, including Japan, Hong Kong, and Australia, as well as Lehman Brothers' investment banking and equities businesses in Europe and the Middle East. The deal became effective on October 13, 2008." (Wikipedia)
Here is something to remember. When Lehman was looking to put all its poisoned assets into an off-shoot company -- in order for Lehman itself to evade responsibility for them -- guess what name they came up with for this proposed company? It was SpinCo.
Maybe that's what we should call this administration... SpinCo. Phil Murphy, Governor of New Jersey and CEO of SpinCo. First in bullshit!
Like all those financial instruments that Wall Street assured us and continue to assure us are A-okay...
Like Gordon Gecko said: "Moral Hazard is when somebody takes your money and is not responsible for it." Like big-spending liberals in government?
Maybe George Carlin was right when he mused about why "good, honest hard-working people... people of modest means..." continued to elect economic elites who had no connection to them. Of course, Mr. Carlin had his own, very special, way of putting it...
