More MCT BS, Other MCT BS

US Treasury Department Will Move Their Offices Into Goldman Sachs Building

US Treasury Department Will Move Their Offices Into Goldman Sachs Building — Treasury Building To Be Mothballed In Cost Cutting Move

The soon to be ex-US Treasury BuildingIt’s a win-win situation. The government is aggressively looking at ways to slash expenditures to cut the enormous deficit. What a way to make a start symbolically and literally. The government will cut the Treasury by slashing the expense of the huge Treasury building. The Obama administration has scheduled to put the vast building on sale. At the same time Goldman Sachs has a lot of excess office space. With so many Wall Street firms out of business Manhattan has a glut of empty offices. “Donating office space is the least we could do for the Feds after all they have done for us. They let our competitors go out of business but they propped up firms like AIG who owed us billions of bucks. Donating office space is our way of saying thank you to the government,” said a Goldman Sachs spokesman.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said, “It makes sense for us to move into the Goldman Sachs headquarters in New York. New York City is the

center of the financial world and Goldman Sachs is the dominant financial company. With the Treasury Department right in their building Goldman Sachs can do a more effective job of overseeing and regulating the Treasury Department…. Excuse me, did I misspeak? I meant to say the Treasury Department can do a more effective job of overseeing and regulating Goldman Sachs if we are right in their building.”

Last week Goldman Sachs Group Inc. reported a record profit for the second quarter. The rebound of Goldman Sachs is a rebound of the financial sector and today they repaid government TARP funds. The AP reported this today Wednesday July 22: “NEW YORK – Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said Wednesday it has repurchased warrants given to the U.S. Treasury under the Troubled Asset Relief Program for $1.1 billion.”

Keep in mind that the GDP is much greater now than in the past. So a fourfold increase percentage-wise is much bigger money-wise.We sent our NYC correspondent to Goldman Sachs headquarters to check out the scene: He reported: “The doorman would not let me in. But everyone going out was beaming. I asked one smiling man who walked out of the Goldman Sachs building, “Why are you so happy?”

This a fantastic and historical day. The Secretary of the Treasury is moving into the office right next door to me. Plus I am getting a $200,000 bonus!”

“What is your job here at Goldman Sachs?”

“I am a janitor.”

“And your office will be next to Timothy Geithner’s?”

“Yeah, He is going to be in-between me and my custodial supply closet and the men’s room. So it will be a good office if he needs to pee a lot.”

We asked another smiling man on the way out, “Why are you so happy?”

“The great news here at Goldman Sachs. Our profits, our paying off the Feds, Geithner moving in–everything. But it is a great day because our success shows that making money off of money is still a viable business. I have unemployed friends who worked at Bear Sterns and Lehman Brothers who thought they were going to have to find work doing something involved with actual manufacturing something, or agriculture–but luckily we can still leave that to the Chinese and the Mexicans.”

“So is it no big deal, for example, that our manufacturing base is diminished and, because of car dependence, we’ve used up our natural resources? American oil production peaked in 1971 and we now import 70% of our oil. This accounts for half of the trade deficit-billions of wealth transfer out of the US. You say this kind of stuff doesn’t matter as long as our finances are strong?”

“Right. While manufacturing and resources dwindled in the US, our field–the financial sector–grew fourfold from 2% to 8% of the US GDP since the 1940s. We almost thought that the big profit game was over. But apparently Goldman Sachs and the financial sector is back and stronger than ever!”

“Since the entire financial system is a mess it got really difficult to make money off of money for a while didn’t it? But didn’t you just develop a recycling program?”

The man’s smile disappeared and he said, “In what way?”

“The government took over and is injecting 172 billion into AIG. AIG paid Goldman Sachs 13 billion bucks. So the government bails out AIG who pays Goldman Sachs. So Goldman Sachs pays the government back with for the warrants and TARP funds with recycled government money. Isn’t that the same as if I took a loan from you and paid you back with your own money you gave to someone else? You are still out the money. Meanwhile we are still in a recession or depression. Millions are unemployed and have not regained back their pensions fund assets or savings.”

“Didn’t AIG owe us the money?”

“That is the question no one is asking. Why did the government choose to pay AIG’s credit default obligations, but if you were a Lehman Brothers’ or GM creditor you were just out of luck?”

“Excuse me. I got to go.”

Government officials are talking about further cost cutting measures since there is no chance AIG will pay their money back–now that they already gave it away to Goldman Sachs and others. There is a tentative plan to put up for sale the Federal Reserve building. JP Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs are bending over backwards to donate free office space for Ben Bernake and gang.

This is the third MCT article on the financial crisis and the making of money off of money.
Here are the links to the other two:
MCT Foresaw The Financial Crisis

The Forgotten Civilization of Pacificus THAT GOT DESTROYED BY Buying Useless Crap

Sources:
http://articles.latimes.com/2009/mar/21/business/fi-aig-goldman21
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financialization