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slipslidingaway

(21,210 posts)
13. UBS and Obama ...
Sun Sep 13, 2015, 11:16 PM
Sep 2015

people can google this for themselves, believe I posted about this back in 2009.

There is a reason why some say there is no difference between an "D" and an "R"

Both parties are beholding to the rich corporate masters on some level, to say that the big money only plays one side of the political coin means they might not always have both eyes open ... trying to be diplomatic


https://www.facebook.com/notes/naomi-wolf/news-from-the-underground-ubs-and-its-connections-to-obamabush/383007912948

"But UBS stands alone in one rather formidable respect-it was the defendant in the largest offshore tax evasion case in U.S. history, accused of helping wealthy Americans hide their income in secret offshore accounts. To settle a massive investigation, UBS forked over $780 million to the US treasury. This settlement came shortly before Wolf rounded out Obama's golfing party. Given this rather problematical situation, why then would the President choose UBS's Wolf of all people for this honor?

Wolf declined a request for an interview about his relationship with the President, so it was not possible to pose that question to him. This hardly matters, though, for the story goes far beyond Wolf and UBS. It involves Republicans as well as Democrats, the Bush Administration as well as Obama's. More importantly, behind the trivialized golf outing on Martha's Vineyard, lie the interests that increasingly set the course for every administration.

BOTH SIDES NOW

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..."

more at link


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