Monday, January 24, 2011

From Matt Taibbi's Mailbag: "Why was Lloyd Blankfein at the White House state dinner for Chinese president Hu Jintao?"

Matt Taibbi:
Matt,
Why was Lloyd Blankfein at the White House state dinner for Chinese president Hu Jintao? The NY Times had an article about how competitive it was to get seats at this state dinner. And there is the head of Goldman Sachs - taking a break from doing God's work, of course - at the dinner. I guess I know why he was there. Because he's corrupt and our government is corrupt. But it's still galling.
Marilee

Marilee,
I think the short answer to that question is that the entire U.S. delegation that was there – from the president to Lloyd – was there to make sure that China will continue to be a good partner when it comes to the removal of the American manufacturing job market to a slave-labor state. Check out this Bloomberg story that talks about Goldman et al being there to talk about “expanding U.S. business interests in China.” All the banks are heavily invested in outsourcing jobs to places like China – I know Bernie Sanders, every time I’ve talked to him, he has mentioned that the reason he’s particularly averse to bailing out these companies is that they refuse to promise to stop moving jobs to China. Why are we subsidizing that effort? Why is Obama there helping these companies move jobs overseas? The whole thing stinks. MORE...

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