While Goldman Sachs is happy with the “Goldman Handcuffs” around their asset Hillary Clinton, there is a bigger shark in the water looking for their piece of the US Government.
Meet Larry Fink, the CEO of BlackRock.
You may have heard of Blackrock from the Feb 16 fundraiser held at Blackrock executive Matt Mallows mansion. You may have also heard that Blackrock’s CEO’s giant wad of cash is FIVE TIMES the size of Lloyd Blankfein’s. Blackrock is a Big Fish.
Larry Fink loves the Treasury Department. He loves it so much he collects former Treasury Department officials like baseball trading cards.
Fink has made clear his desire to become Treasury Secretary someday. The Obama administration had him on the short list to replace Timothy Geithner. When that didn’t materialize, he pulled several members of prior Treasury Departments into high-level positions at the firm, which may improve the prospects of realizing his dream in a future Clinton administration.
And Clinton is far from telling Blackrock to “cut it out.” She has refused to rule out placing a Wall Street executive at Treasury. She will say mean things about Wall Street as a whole, but won’t attack Blackrock.
And lucky for her, he’s got an entire team waiting to take up residence in a Treasury Department (being former Treasury officials and all) with him at the head. And he’s been doing his best to buy himself into Clinton’s good graces: hiring Clinton longtime friend Cheryl Mills onto the Blackrock board, the aformentioned Blackrock fundraiser (Mallow himself is a Hillraiser budler). Strangely, no obscene buy in with the Clinton Foundation.
So what would this future Treasury Secretary be like? You know, the usual:
- opposes Glass-Steagall (like Clinton)
- Regulation of asset mgmt firms as SIFI (Blackrock is an asset mgmt firm, and an SIFI designation invites a host of additional regulations)
- Wants an end to “short term-ism” like Clinton — the self interest here is that policies favoring longer terms helps Blackrock’s bottom line.
- privatize Social Security — yes Clinton has pledge not to do so. But we’ve been through this song and dance before, and we all know how it turns out.
We’re going to need a bigger boat.
(There is a lot more in the original articles, please read them!)
SOURCES: (1) theintercept.com/…
(2) freebeacon.com/...
UPDATE: I want to sincerely thank every Hillary supporter who has “commented” on this blog post. You have proven that the likelihood of a Fink Treasury is indefensible.