Jim Hightower

Gosh, the federal henhouse seems to be overrun with Goldman foxes!

Foxes from Goldman Sachs, that is – the financial giant that keeps slipping its top executives inside the government to shape federal banking policies. Two Goldman foxes, Robert Rubin and Larry Summers, were economic advisors to Bill Clinton, with both ultimately getting the top spot at the treasury department. In those years, they helped craft the financial deregulation scams that enriched Wall Street outfits like Goldman – before the whole, greed-fueled policy crashed our economy.

Then came Hank Paulsen, the Goldman Sachs CEO who became George W's treasury secretary just in time to create the ongoing Wall Street bailout, which so far has put more than 50 billion of our tax dollars into Goldman's vaults. Today, the rip-off rescue of greedheaded and boneheaded bankers continues under the Obama administration, guided by none other than Larry Summers, that sly Goldman fox from the Clinton years. He has slipped back into the government henhouse as Obama's top economic advisor.

Now comes news that yet another fox from Goldman Sachs has been quietly lurking in a corner of the henhouse. He's Stephen Friedman, the one-time chairman of Goldman, who was ensconced by Bush as chairman of the New York Federal Reserve Bank – which oversees Wall Street. Some overseer. While head of the New York Fed, Friedman has continued to be a director of (and shareholder in) Goldman Sachs! Yes, this means that the regulator was also the regulatee – and, yes, he was involved in decisions that have benefitted the bank.

Once exposed for this cozy conflict, Friedman resigned from the Fed. But not before helping name a new president of the government's Wall Street overseer. The new guy is William Dudley – the former chief economist for, you guessed it – Goldman Sachs.