Who Rules GM?

GM is famous for being one of the world’s largest transnational industrial corporations, for laying off its U.S. factory workers before it lays off its cheaper labor in its factories outside the Untied States, for manufacturing tanks for both the German Army and the U.S. Army during World War II, and for being so mismanaged that it can’t compete successfully with Japanese Establishment-owned automobile manufacturers. So what’s good for General Motors is not necessarily what’s good for most people in the United States.

But as the GM web sitereveals, in recent years GM’s board of directors has included the following U.S. Establishment businesspeople:

1. Morgan Stanley, North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance, Cousins Properties and Erskine Bowles & Co. Director, Carousel Capital Senior Advisor, University of North Carolina President and former Clinton White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles.

2. Goldman Sachs Group Director, former Sara Lee Chairman/CEO and University of Chicago and Art Institute of Chicago Trustee John Bryan.

3. Merrill Lynch, Home Depot, AMR Director and Flagler Development CEO Armando Codina.

4.Coca Cola Chairman/CEO, former Sun Trust Banks Director and Center for Strategic International Studies and U.S. Council for International Business Trustee E. Neville Isdell.

5. Deutsche Bank Advisory Board Member and former Compaq Computer CEO Eckhard Pfeiffer.

6. BP and Union Pacific Director, former Alliance Energy Chairman/CEO, University System of Georgia Chancellor and University of Chicago and Carnegie Mellon University Trustee Erroll Davis Jr.

7. Harris Corporation, Home Depot, Catalyst Director, former Pfizer Vice-chairman, Pfizer Foundation Chairman, Essex Woodlands Health Ventures Senior Adviser and University of Chicago Trustee Karen Katen.

8. Former Northrup Grumman Chairman, Fluor, Avery Denison and Mannkind Director, MIT Lincoln Library Advisory Board Member, California Institute of Technology and Haynes Foundation Trustee Kent Kresa.

9. E.I. DuPont de Nemours Executive Vice-President and Tufts University Trustee Ellen Kullman.

10. Former Ernst & Young Chairman/CEO and Loew’s, Discover Financial Services and Henry Schein Director Philip Laskawy.

11. Former GE Fleet Services CEO and Ceridian Chairman/CEO Kathryn Marinello.

12. Kohlberg Kravis Roberts Senior Advisor and former Eastman Kodak Chairman/CEO George Fisher.

13. Former Astra Zeneca PLC-UK Chairman Percy Barnevik.

14. Former GM de Brasil President, Duke University Trustee and Harvard Business School Dean’s Advisory Board Member G. Richard Wagoner, Jr.

Similarly, in the early 1990s, GM’s board of directors included the following U.S. Establishment businesspeople:

1. Citibank/Citicorp, PepsiCo and Johnson & Johnson Director Roger Smith.

2. Chevron/Gulf Oil, Bechtel and Boeing Director George Shultz.

3. J.P. Morgan & Co./Morgan Guaranty Trust Director Dennis Weatherstone.

4. Citibank/Citicorp, AT & T, Metropolitan Life Insurance Director and Rockefeller Brothers Fund Trustee James Evans.

5. National Bank of Detroit/NBD Bancorp and American Airlines Director Charles Fisher III.

6. Merck & Co. and NCR Corp. Director John Horan.

7. Marriott Corp. Director J. Willard Marriott Jr.

8. Chase Manhattan Bank/Chase Manhattan Corp., International Paper Co., and Pfizer Inc. Director Edmund Pratt Jr.

9. J.P. Morgan & Co./Morgan Guaranty Trust and Procter & Gamble Director John Smale.

10. AT&T Director Thomas Wyman.

So don’t be surprised if the corporate folks who still rule the privately-owned, not yet-nationalized, GM eventually get a big corporate welfare grant from the U.S. Establishment’s federal government—before GM’s rulers once again start laying-off more of its U.S. factory workers in 2009 who are members of the UAW.

(Downtown 3/11/92)

Recalling Big Banks' Role In 1990s Dot-Com Bust

Some of the same Wall Street big banks whose financially reckless banking practices helped create the “Great Recession of 2008-2009” also apparently played a role in creating the late 1990s dot-com/telecom industry bust. For example, according to the 2004 book by Roger Lowenstein, Origins of the Crash:

“Gary Winnick, the architect of Global Crossing, a transoceanic fiber developer, was the most brazen of the bandwidth barons and, indeed, operated on a grand scale reminiscent of the original robber barons…

“Working from an opulent Beverly Hills headquarters, whose inner sanctum was modestly designed to resemble the Oval Office, Winnick borrowed billions…

“…The telecoms had a prodigious appetite for loans; moreover, the boom coincided with the repeal of Glass-Steagall, which had separated underwriting from banking. Banks such as Chase Manhattan (soon to be J.P.Morgan Chase) were now thirsting to move into underwriting. With telecoms equally thirsting for cash, banks used loans as bait to get the inside track on underwriting assignments, the precise abuse that Glass-Steagall had been intended to prevent. As Julie Creswell later revealed in Fortune, Chase was a notorious offender. It not only cut its fees to worm its way into banking deals; it courted Winnick…by introducing him to David Rockefeller, Chase’s former chairman…Rockefeller escorted Winnick…on a private tour of the Museum of Modern Art. By such means, Chase became Global’s banker and, indeed, the telecom industry’s commercial banker of choice. There is no evidence that the bank of David Rockefeller was overly concerned with whether demand for bandwidth was truly insatiable or—in the event it was not—with how its loans would be repaid…In 1999, Global showed earnings of $10 million—before, that is, Global’s interest expense of $92 million. No banker—no genuine banker—would lend on the basis of such numbers, suggesting mightily that Chase and the rest were scrambling after fees—were, that is, risking their shareholders’ capital in order to book short-term profits…”

`William Z. Foster'

(verses)
"My father was a Fenian who fled from British tyranny
And overseas he brought me up to fight for Ireland to be free
I saw the bosses' cruelty when I entered the working-class
And vowed I'd fight for a new world until I breathed my last.

"I hoboed all around the land and worked on ships at sea
I saw the sailors' suffering and felt police brutality
With migrant workers I did roam, in search of a day's pay
And organized union locals wherever I did stay.

(chorus)
"William Foster is my name
And I fight with heart and mind
And today we march to City Hall
For the rights of the Unemployed.

(verses)
"From Seattle to Chicago, the unorganized I did approach
And those ignored by the A.F.L. were the workers to whom I gave some hope
In the stockyards and the steel cities, I planned the big campaigns
And the Great Steel Strike after the World War, for steelworkers showed the way.

"To fight the Corporate Slave System, the CP I did join
And as their candidate for President, warned `millions will be unemployed'
And now we're here in Union Square, to say to the corporate rich
`There are no jobs, so we demand unemployment insurance~' (chorus)

"One hundred thousand strong today, yet still there is no permit to march
`Six months in jail,' they threaten me, and say I'm `inciting to riot'
And the New York cops, I see them charge, and club without mercy
But the Working Class will rise again until we win our victory." (chorus)

The William Z. Foster biographical protest folk song was written a few years ago and can be sung to the tune of the traditional Irish rebel folk song, "The Boys of Wexford."

To listen to some other protest folk songs, you can check out the following music site links:

http://www.myspace.com/bobafeldman68music


http://www.mp3.com/artist/bobafeldman/songs/

Treasury Secretary-Designate Geithner's Kissinger Associates Connection--Conclusion

Between 1986 and 1989, U.S. Treasury Secretary-Designate Timothy Geithner was employed at Henry Kissinger, Brent Scowcroft and Lawrence Eagleburger’s Kissinger Associates influence-peddling firm, which also employed George W. Bush’s former special envoy to Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, during the early 1990s. Commerce Secretary-Designate Bill Richardson, also is a former employee of Kissinger Associates.

In its April 30, 1989 article by Jeff Gerth and Sara Bartlett, titled “Kissinger And Friends And Revolving Doors,” the New York Times observed that at the same time Henry Kissinger operated his Kissinger Associates influence-peddling operation, Treasury Secretary-Designate Geithner’s former business colleague also “had a continuous window into the government’s most sensitive information as a member of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board or Pfiab.” According to the New York Times, the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board was “a little-known but powerful group” of 16 scientists, business executives and former U.S. government officials which advises the U.S. President about intelligence issues and intelligence activities.

At least one former Pfiab official, “who asked not to be identified because of the board’s secrecy pledge,” told the New York Times in 1989 that Henry Kissinger, “using his authority as a board member, frequently reviewed intelligence documents outside the regular board meetings.” The former Pfiab official also told the New York Times that he believed that Kissinger’s Pfiab membership gave Kissinger special business benefit because Kissinger “could not have separated the insights gained from his access to United States intelligence data from his continuing analysis and advice” to his Kissinger Associates clients--during the period when Treasury Secretary-Designate Geithner was employed at Kissinger Associates.

In the year prior to taking office in the Bush I Administration, former Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger earned $674,000 from his work for Kissinger Associates and an affiliated Kent Associates firm (which paid $214,000 of the total Eagleburger earned from his `consulting’ work for special, private corporate clients).

After posing the rhetorical question “What exactly do they do for that much money?” the New York Times concluded in its April 30, 1989 “Kissinger And Friends And Revolving Doors” article that “little is known about what Kissinger Associates does for its clients.”

The New York Times also reported in 1989 that “When the Senate Foreign Relations Committee tried to elicit more information” on Kissinger Associates activities at his confirmation hearing, Eagleburger “was adamant in his refusal to discuss any details” with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Former Deputy Secretary of State Eagleburger did promise, however, “to disqualify himself for one year from matters involving his clients at Kissinger Associates,” according to the New York Times.

Given Treasury Secretary-Designate Geithner’s past association with Kissinger Associates during the same period that Eagleburger worked for the firm, perhaps Geithner should, like Eagleburger, also agree to disqualify himself for one year from matters involving Kissinger Associates clients, especially since banks (like the Midland Bank of Britain) have been among the clients of Kissinger Associates, historically? And, as a member of the House Banking Committee in the early 1990s, former Representative Henry Gonzalez of Texas, wrote me in a July 16, 1991 letter:

“For your information, the House Banking Committee’s on-going investigation into the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNI) scandal has revealed some new evidence of potential conflicts of interest involving National Security Director Brent Scowcroft, Henry Kissinger and Kissinger Associates.

“Upon learning of this fact, I have asked President Bush, in a letter dated May 2, 1991, to review Mr. Scowcroft’s stock portfolio to ensure any potential conflicts are eliminated.

“I was deeply concerned about Mr. Scrowcroft’s stock holdings, especially since he is in a position to strongly influence our national security and foreign policies.

“Rest assured, I am following this matter with careful attention, and will continue to monitor Mr. Kissinger and Kissinger Associates to ensure they do not practice improper influence over U.S. foreign policy.” (end of article)

Treasury Secretary-Designate Geithner's Kissinger Associates Connection--Part 3

Between 1986 and 1989, U.S. Treasury Secretary-Designate Timothy Geithner was employed at Henry Kissinger, Brent Scowcroft and Lawrence Eagleburger’s Kissinger Associates influence-peddling firm, which also employed George W. Bush’s former special envoy to Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, during the early 1990s. Commerce Secretary-Designate Bill Richardson, also is a former employee of Kissinger Associates.

Geithner’s former associate at Kissinger Associates, Henry Kissinger, was not too pleased when some New York Times reporters in the late 1980s decided to write an investigative article about Kissinger Associates’ clients and their past links to former Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger, who was the Kissinger Associates president before he moved into his State Department office in 1989. On April 14, 1989, for example, the Wall Street Journal reported that Henry Kissinger was “annoyed” at the Times for its “investigation of Kissinger Associates’ clients” and was “threatening a lawsuit against the paper for harassing clients.”

The results of this New York Times investigation of Kissinger Associates were published on April 30, 1989, in an article titled “Kissinger And Friends And Revolving Doors” by Jeff Gerth and Sarah Bartlett. The article noted that, initially, another former Kissinger Associates colleague of Geithner, former National Security Affairs Adviser Brent Scowcroft, “told the White House he was merely a consultant to Kissinger Inc.” and only “later amended his financial disclosure statement to reflect his position as vice-chairman.”

According to the 1989 New York Times article, Scowcroft also “told the White House he had to disclose only the name of Kissinger Associates, not the specific clients he worked with, because he was merely a consultant to the firm.” Scowcroft only amended the financial disclosure statement he had filed on February 21, 1989 (to indicate that he was actually the former Kissinger Associates vice-chairman) on March 17, 1989, “one day after a reporter asked him why he had not reported” his true Kissinger Associates post on his original financial disclosure form.

On his public disclosure form, according to the 1989 New York Times article, Treasury Secretary-Designate Geithner’s former colleague, Scowcroft, indicated that he would “disqualify himself from specific matters involving companies he” held “stock in and former clients such as Kissinger Associates, but not from matters involving the firm’s clients.” The New York Times also reported in 1989 that “among those willing to pay $200,000 or more to be clients of Kissinger Associates are ITT, American Express, Anheuser-Busch, Coca Cola, H.J. Heinz, Fiat, Volvo, LM Ericsson, Daewoo and Midland Bank.”

The “Kissinger And Friends And Revolving Doors” article also reported in April 1989 that Treasury Secretary-Designate Geithner’ former colleague, Scowcroft, “belatedly disclosed that he held stock in Kissinger Associates and, according to Mr. Kissinger and public documents, he arranged last month to have Mr. Kissinger buy it back for nine times its estimated worth”; and that Scowcroft’s Kissinger Associates salary had exceeded $293,000 per year during the time that Geithner was employed by Kissinger Associates. (end of part 3)

Treasury Secretary-Designate Geithner's Kissinger Associates Connection--Part 2

Between 1986 and 1989, U.S. Treasury Secretary-Designate Timothy Geithner was employed at Henry Kissinger, Brent Scowcroft and Lawrence Eagleburger’s Kissinger Associates influence-peddling firm, which also employed George W. Bush’s former special envoy to Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, during the early 1990s. Commerce Secretary-Designate Bill Richardson also is a former employee of Kissinger Associates.

Among the political influence-peddling firms in the United States, “Mr. Kissinger and his associates are by all accounts the most successful of this new breed of former senior Government officials,” according to the April 20, 1986 New York Times Magazine article, titled “Kissinger Means Business: Corporate America is eagerly seeking Henry Kissinger’s insight and celebrity.”

The “Kissinger Means Business” article also implied that the motive of these former and current senior Government officials for moving back-and-forth between U.S. foreign policy-determination roles and private influence-peddling positions was generally a mercenary one, since “many of these former Government leaders asked themselves, why not capitalize on our stardom, international contacts and insider knowledge to make large incomes on our own.”

In 1986, U.S. Treasury Secretary-Designate Geithner’s former colleagues at Kissinger Associates—Kissinger, Scowcroft and Eagleburger—peddled their special influence to 25 to 30 corporate clients in exchange for payments from their clients that totaled $5 million in Kissinger Associates gross income. Each political influence-purchaser paid Geithner’s former employer between $150,000 and $420,000 per years for its services because, as former New York Times national security correspondent Leslie Gelb observed in 1986: “The super-star international consultants were certainly people who would get their telephone calls returned from high American Government officials and who would also be able to get executives in to see foreign leaders.”

When I telephoned the Kissinger Associates office in Manhattan in early 1991 to ask who some of its clients were at that time, a spokesperson for Kissinger Associates replied: “That’s all confidential.”

The April 20, 1986 New York Times Magazine article, however, indicated that besides the Kuwaiti government-owned Midland Bank of Britain, the Kissinger Associates client list at the time Treasury Secretary-Designate Geithner was employed by Kissinger Associates included H.J. Heinz, American Express/Shearson Lehman, Fiat, Volvo, ASEA, L.M. Ericsson of Sweden, Montedison of Italy, the International Energy Corporation, Atlantic Richfield/ARCO and the Fluor Corporation.

Although Henry Kissinger was the sole owner of Kissinger Associates when Geithner was employed by his firm, former National Security Affairs Adviser Brent Scowcroft and former Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger each received hefty salaries when they worked as Kissinger’s partners in influence-peddling prior to assuming their influential posts in the Bush I Administration in 1989. To further attract foreign government-owned corporations like Midland Bank of Britain as influence-purchasing clients, Kissinger Associates established a board of directors that included the following international corporate establishment figures around the time that Treasury Secretary-Designate Geithner was employed by Kissinger Associates: former U.S. Treasury Secretary William Simon; former Citibank Chairman of the Board Edward Palmer; former U.S. Under-Secretary of State William D. Rogers; then-S.F. Warburg Chairman Lord Roll; then-Atlantic Richfield/ARCO Chairman Robert O. Anderson; then-Volvo Chief Executive Office Pehr Gyllenhammar and former Japanese government foreign minister Saburo Okita. (end of part 2)

`Let The Big Banks Fail'

(chorus)
Let the Big Banks fail
And put the bankers in jail
It’s time to right the wrong
And not save those who committed fraud

(verse)
Wall Street ripped off investors
And made billions from sub-prime loans
Yet when their housing boom turned to bust
To Washington, the bankers did go.
The big bankers they purchased
The Congress and the White House
So Democrats and Republicans
Are eager to bail them out.

(bridge)
They say they have no money to give welfare for the poor
Yet "Lehman-Goldman Sachs" get $700 billion more
They say they have no money to provide jobs and free health care
Yet AIG and Merrill Lynch are given Corporate Welfare. (chorus)

(additional verses)
If a tenant can’t pay his rent
A landlord will evict
But if a Big Bank can’t pay its debt
Its government will give it cash.
If a worker can’t do her job
She’ll get fired for incompetence
But if a banker wrecks his bank
His government gives him a blank check.(chorus)

If a homeowner can’t pay his mortgage
He’ll lose his home and get foreclosed
But if Wall Street can’t pay off its creditors
It gets another big government loan.
If a store loses its customers
It will soon be forced to close
But if Big Banks steal from consumers
They’re given billions in loans. (bridge) (chorus)

They’re all for a free market
When their profits are rolling in
But once they start losing money
The free market ain’t for them.
If you can’t pay your student debts
You’ll get harassed by their government
Yet when Wall Street banks owe people money
The government lets them off the hook. (chorus)

So if you don’t think it’s democratic
For Wall Street’s government to rule over you
Then just take over CNN
With the help of your labor union.
The bankers’ names might be Pritzker
Or Rubin or J.P. Morgan
Yet they all don’t want regulation
So they can rip off the people again. (chorus)

The "Let The Big Banks Fail" folk song was written in recent months.

To listen to "Let The Big Banks Fail" and other protest folk songs, you might want to check out the Columbia Songs for a Democratic Society music site link at:

http://www.myspace.com/bobafeldman68music )

and at

http://www.mp3.com/artist/bobafeldman/summary/