Thursday, December 13, 2007

Columbia University Professor Dinkins' Historic Wall Street Connection

Columbia University Professor David Dinkins failed to fight against the special interests of Wall Street’s investment bankers when he was the Mayor of New York City during the early 1990s. One reason may have been because he accepted campaign contributions in 1989 from the same Wall Street investment banking firms who were selected by his administration in 1990 to make big bucks by selling City government bonds. As Shadow Government by Donald Axelrod observed:

“Excluding the federal government, New York City issues more bonds than any public authority or state and local government in the United States. In July 1990 the city selected five underwriters from a field of 53 companies to sell $6 billion in bonds: Bear, Stearns; Goldman Sachs; First Boston; Shearson Lehman Hutton; and Merrill Lynch. To no one’s surprise, the New York Times revealed that all five had contributed $233,000 to the campaigns of Mayor David N. Dinkins and Comptroller Elizabeth Holtzman."

Under Columbia University Professor Dinkins’ administration, the official unemployment rate in New York City was 9.5 percent in August 1993.

(Downtown 9/29/93)

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