CPV: A Private Equity Fracking Play

Competitive Power Ventures (CPV), an energy company behind nine planned or operational natural gas power plants across the US and Canada, has faced strident local opposition to several of its east coast projects. Proposed plants in New York and Connecticut have highlighted how CPV uses political influence, including the hiring of well-connected lobbyists and political …

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Introducing Oligrapher: power mapping on LittleSis

The Endless Chain A single example will illustrate the vicious circle of control–the endless chain–through which our financial oligarchy now operates: J.P. Morgan (or a partner), a director of the New York, New Haven, & Hartford Railroad, causes that company to sell to J.P. Morgan & Co. an issue of bonds. J.P. Morgan & Co. …

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Banking on think tanks

Last week Jon Cowan, president of think tank Third Way, and Jim Kessler, Third Way’s senior vice president for policy, co-authored a Wall Street Journal op-ed blasting Senator Elizabeth Warren’s progressive economic agenda as irresponsible and even reckless. Third Way’s position should come as no surprise to those familiar with the think tank. Just a …

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Dudley’s daybook goes dark

In the wake of a report from ProPublica that the New York Fed fired a senior bank examiner for challenging inadequacies in Goldman Sachs’ management of conflict of interests, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at the daily schedules of the New York Fed’s president, William Dudley, a Goldman alum. Dudley …

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Facebook and Goldman: already good friends!

Here is Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg saying he doesn’t believe in privacy. Here is Facebook tapping Goldman Sachs to work some financial magic so that it can raise a bunch of capital without disclosing anything to the public. Forbes’ Jeff Bercovici notes the irony: …

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Scrutiny of Goldman’s Role in Greek Debt Crisis Intensifies in US

Goldman Sachs appears to be testing the limits of its special talent for avoiding all accountability following revelations of its role in exacerbating the Greek debt crisis. The bank has come under heavy criticism from European political officials over its role in helping Greece hide its debts, and on Wednesday, Greek labor unions staged a …

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What is John Paulson doing in Greece?

Goldman Sachs’s Greek adventure got an in-depth look from the New York Times yesterday. The article extends on last week’s Spiegel piece, which reported that the bank helped Greece hide the true extent of its debt through the use of specialized derivative products.  We first reported on the parallels between AIG and Greece in a …

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Greece: the new AIG?

With the mounting crisis in Greece, another massive stash of toxic debt has revealed itself in a way that can’t be ignored.  Fears of a “contagious default” in the Eurozone hammered markets yesterday, with one Greek banker calling it a “wholesale selling off of the country.” Today, markets are rebounding on hopes for an EU …

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