“The Goldman Sachs Group” on The Daily Caller

NEW YORK (AP) — The Federal Reserve on Tuesday said the largest U.S. banks and financial companies should hold extra cash on their balance sheets to cushion themselves against financial crises. (more)

1.) Obama’s jobs team gets green-washed — “President Barack Obama will name Jeffrey Immelt, General Electric Co.’s chief executive officer, to head his outside panel of economic advisers, replacing former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker,” reports Bloomberg News. “Immelt has sounded many of the administration’s themes: boosting jobs through U.S. exports, ensuring companies can compete with powers like China and India, and jumpstarting a clean-energy economy. Immelt wrote today that he and Obama ‘are committed’ to making the U.S. ‘the most competitive and innovating economy in the world.’” According to Bloomberg, “Immelt is among a group of executives — Boeing Co. CEO Jim McNerney; Motorola Solutions Inc. CEO Greg Brown, and Honeywell International Inc. Chairman David Cote — who have voiced support for Obama policies. The four serve on several of the president’s outside advisory boards”–and all four have made a killing on green jobs subsidies (more)

Happy New Year! Unless, that is, you’re Keith Olbermann and you don’t know the meaning of happiness. Let’s take a look at Olbermann’s first week in the 2011 anchor chair at “Countdown.” (more)

For the second time since he became chairman in 2006, Ben S. Bernanke is leading the Federal Reserve into uncharted monetary territory. (more)

At this point, my head is spinning. Earlier tonight, I wrote about how Verizon is still full-steam ahead on destroying the fabric of Android. Meanwhile, on the other side of the aisle, we have AT&T playing up the fact that they got a “D-” on a coverage test instead of an “F”. I seriously just can’t decide which carrier is worse. (more)

1.) Potential Obama nominee Elizabeth Warren is a huge pain in the ass, former colleagues say — “While the general consensus seems to be that Warren will get the chance to head the consumer-centered agency she claims to have come up with, it has not gone unnoticed that the Obama administration appears to be dragging its feet on her nomination.” TheDC’s Amanda Carey can tell you why: Warren is an obnoxious human being. “[She] has gotten major criticism in the way she’s carried out her duties,” George Mason law professor Todd Zywicki told TheDC. “There are serious concerns about her impartiality and that she uses these jobs as a platform for self promotion.” A bankruptcy attorney who worked with Warren on the National Bankruptcy Review Commission added his own anecdotes to claims that Warren is only in this for the chance at a daytime talk show. For example: When it came time for the committee to draft its report, Warren hijacked the process, substantially rewrote several sections, and told everyone else involved in the project to suck an egg. Such was their ire that the rest of the commissioners wrote a dissenting report correcting Warren’s version. Then again, Warren will fit right in with the baby daddies, slumlords, tax evaders, and mockers of the mentally disabled who currently pollute the White House. (more)

– ”While the general consensus seems to be that Warren will get the chance to head the consumer-centered agency she claims to have come up with, it has not gone unnoticed that the Obama administration appears to be dragging its feet on her nomination.” TheDC’s Amanda Carey can tell you why: Warren is an obnoxious human being. “[She] has gotten major criticism in the way she’s carried out her duties,” George Mason law professor Todd Zywicki told TheDC. “There are serious concerns about her impartiality and that she uses these jobs as a platform for self promotion.” A bankruptcy attorney who worked with Warren on the National Bankruptcy Review Commission added his own anecdotes to claims that Warren is only in this for the chance at a daytime talk show. For example: When it came time for the committee to draft its report, Warren hijacked the process, substantially rewrote several sections, and told everyone else involved in the project to suck an egg. Such was their ire that the rest of the commissioners wrote a dissenting report correcting Warren’s version. Then again, Warren will fit right in with the baby daddies, slum lords, tax evaders, and mockers of the mentally disabled who currently pollute the White House.
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The sweeping financial reform bill that President Obama signed into law last month included one key provision that has gone largely under the radar. According to Section 748 of the bill –entitled “COMMODITY WHISTLEBLOWER INCENTIVES AND PROTECTION” — employees at financial institutions and businesses on Wall Street can now be awarded large sums of money by the federal government in return for informing the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of internal fraud and abuse. (more)

A rumor has gone viral. From journalists to bankers, brokers, and bloggers, the buzz is that the White House is about to spring an August surprise: The Obama administration will order the two government-controlled mortgage lenders, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, to forgive mortgage debt owed by millions of American homeowners. (more)

Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s principal- strategies business, a group that makes bets with the firm’s own capital, plans to transform into a fund and raise outside money, a person with direct knowledge of the decision said. (more)

Secrecy and greed are polluting the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, the nation’s first mandatory cap-and-trade system.  Under the RGGI scheme, the smell of profiteering is powerful.  New Jersey and nine other Northeast states have sold $662 million in carbon dioxide permits since 2008. (more)

There will never be another s— deal at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (more)

July 20 (Bloomberg) — Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said second-quarter profit dropped 82 percent, missing analysts’ estimates on a slide in trading revenue, five days after settling U.S. regulators’ fraud allegations. Revenue and profit were the lowest since the fourth quarter of 2008. (more)

Earthquake strikes epicenter of government-sponsored vice–a sign from God? — Prosecution rests in case of Blago v. The World — Google is laying the groundwork for a royal screw-job — Cat lovers attack Pres. Obama’s fiscal commission — Democrats continue to deny benefits to poors — Goldman Sachs up  (more)

WASHINGTON—Congress approved a rewrite of rules touching every corner of finance, from ATM cards to Wall Street traders, in the biggest expansion of government power over banking and markets since the Depression. (more)

As of early this morning, the oil leak in the Gulf appears to have been plugged and the White House is hoping that the president’s political hemorrhaging has been simultaneously cauterized. (more)

JPMorgan Chase & Company kicked off earnings season for the nation’s big banks on Thursday with news of a strong gain in second-quarter profit. (more)

“Hey, Frank. Can you believe it was only 18 months ago you guys announced the sale of the first piece of BP — that $10 billion Alaska plot they nicknamed Palin’s Peaks — to start paying for their Gulf clean up?  And today, they’re auctioning off their last field, that hell-hole in Nigeria.” (more)

The Department of Interior won’t comment as to whether or not Goldman Sachs is being investigated for having prior knowledge of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig’s vulnerability. (more)

WASHINGTON—Goldman Sachs Group Inc. executives defended valuations for credit-default swaps that were presented to American International Group Inc. during the financial crisis, saying they reflected actual market prices. (more)