At least that's what Max Keiser thinks. Great video on Zero Hedge.

"They are literally stealing a hundred million dollars a day.
Goldman Sachs is stealing every day on the floor of the exchange.
They should be in the Hague, they should be taken on financial
terrorism charges. They should all be thrown in jail"

Oh we can only dream.

C

Most people are probably unaware that Canada's Single Payer
system did not originate in Ottawa but in one province and
was eventually picked up by the National Government.
John Nickols explains.

The initial progress came at the provincial
level, led by the Co-operative Commonwealth
Federation's Tommy Douglas when he served from
1941 to 1960 premier of Saskatchewan. The
universal, publicly-funded "single-payer"
health care system that Douglas and his
socialist allies developed in Saskatchewan
proved to be so successful and so popular
that it was eventually adopted by other
provinces and, ultimately, by Canada's
federal government.

For his efforts, Douglas would be hailed
in a national survey as "The Greatest Canadian"
of all time. But Douglas' regional initiative
also offers a lesson for Americans.

Those of us who know that the only real cure
for what ails the U.S. health care system is
a universal public plan that provides health
care for all Americans while controlling costs
recognize the frustrating reality that there
are many economic and political barriers to
the federal action that would create a
single-payer system. This makes clearing the
way experimentation at the state level all
the more important.

And this is probably the most practical way it will
come about. The good news is that a amendment
to the House Bill has been added allowing for this.

By a 25-19 vote, the House Committee on Education
and Labor on Friday approved an amendment to the
House's health-care reform bill allowing states to
create single-payer health care systems if they
so choose.

"There are many models of health care reform from
which to choose around the world - the vast majority
of which perform far better than ours. The one that
has been the most tested here and abroad is
single-payer," explained Congressman Dennis Kucinich,
the Ohio Democrat who proposed the amendment.
"Under a single-payer system everyone in the U.S.
would get a card that would allow access to any
doctor at virtually any hospital. Doctors and
hospitals would continue to be privately run,
but the insurance payments would be in the public
hands. By getting rid of the for-profit insurance
companies, we can save $400 billion per year and
provide coverage for all medically necessary
services for everyone in the U.S."

Votes for the amendment came from progressive
Democrats who favor single-payer -- such as
Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chairs
Lynn Woolsey, of California, and Raul Grijalva,
of Arizona -- as well as conservative Republicans
who have no taste for single-payer but want states
to be able to set their own agendas. 

I know the sentiment is for us to just bite the bullet and get
Single Payer enacted on the Federal Level but I personally
do not see that as happening. But I do see the a few States
doing it since action of that type is more easily done on a
State Level. When It proves to be more viable, then you
will see it on a national level.

C

Matt Taibbi explains where their outrageous profit came from.

Last year, when Hank Paulson told us all that the planet
would explode if we didn't fork over a gazillion dollars
to Wall Street immediately, the entire rationale not only
for TARP but for the whole galaxy of lesser-known state
crutches and safety nets quietly ushered in later on was
that Wall Street, once rescued, would pump money back
into the economy, create jobs, and initiate a widespread
recovery. This, we were told, was the reason we needed to
pilfer massive amounts of middle-class tax revenue and
hand it over to the same guys who had just blown up the
financial world. We'd save their asses, they'd save ours.
That was the deal.

It turned out not to happen that way. We constructed this
massive bailout infrastructure, and instead of pumping
that free money back into the economy, the banks instead
simply hoarded it and ate it on the spot, converting it
into bonuses. So what does this Goldman profit number
mean? This is the final evidence that the bailouts were a
political decision to use the power of the state to
redirect society's resources upward, on a grand scale. It
was a selective rescue of a small group of chortling
jerks who must be laughing all the way to the Hamptons
every weekend about how they fleeced all of us at the
very moment the game should have been up for all of them.

Now, the counter to this charge is, well, hey, they made
that money fair and square, legally, how can you blame
them? They're just really smart!

Bullshit. One of the most hilarious lies that has been
spread about Goldman of late is that, since it repaid its
TARP money, it's now free and clear of any obligation to
the government - as if that was the only handout Goldman
got in the last year. Goldman last year made your average
AFDC mom on food stamps look like an entrepreneur. Here's
a brief list of all the state aid that is hiding behind
that $3.44 billion number they announced the other day.
In no particular order:

Republicans who have been giving us the crocodile tears bit on
this have the unmitigated nerve to get all upset over the cost
of government health insurance.  We could pay for health
insurance for everyone in this country with just what GS got
from us.

What a crock of sh.....

C

Genn Greenwald weaves this tale of intrigue here.

UPDATE: Several commenters add a crucial point:
back in September, the Federal Reserve allowed
Goldman (and a few other surviving institutions) to
convert from an investment bank into a bank holding
company.  The Wall St. Journal claimed at the time
that the move meant the firm would "come under the
close supervision of national bank regulators,
subjecting them to new capital requirements,
additional oversight, and far less profitability
than they have historically enjoyed."  A mere nine
months later, Goldman boasts of "blowout profits."
So much for "less profitability."  As for allegedly
greater regulations and capital restrictions, they
freely admitted from the start:  "'We don't believe
we'll have to get out of any businesses,' says
Lucas van Praag, a Goldman spokesman. Adds Morgan
Stanley's Mark Lake, 'There will not be much in
terms of divestitures'."

But what the conversion did allow was access to
lending from the Federal Reserve.  Since then, the
Fed has increased its balance sheet by $2 trillion
while steadfastly refusing to disclose the
beneficiaries of that credit.  Thus, even aside
from the bailout money it directly received and the
billions in bailout money which it indirectly
received (through AIG), Goldman has had access to
massive amounts of Fed lending in order to fuel its
bulging profits.  That unimaginably enormous
(though entirely secret) lending is, in part, what
is behind the Ron Paul-sponsored bill to audit the
Fed -- a bill that is now co-sponsored by a
majority of House members from across the political
spectrum (progressive, conservative and everything
in between), yet which continues to be blocked by
Congressional leaders from receiving a floor vote.

And with all those alumni now situated in nearly every financial
office....conflict of interest ??

As was reported on Bill Moyers a while back.

BLACK: The Bush administration and now the Obama
administration kept secret from us what was being
done with AIG. AIG was being used secretly to bail
out favored banks like UBS and like Goldman Sachs.
Secretary Paulson's firm, that he had come from
being CEO. It got the largest amount of money.
$12.9 billion. And they didn't want us to know
that. And it was only Congressional pressure, and
not Congressional pressure, by the way, on
Geithner, but Congressional pressure on AIG.

    Where Congress said, "We will not give you a
single penny more unless we know who received the
money." And, you know, when he was Treasury
Secretary, Paulson created a recommendation group
to tell Treasury what they ought to do with AIG.
And he put Goldman Sachs on it.

MOYERS: Even though Goldman Sachs had a big vested
stake.

BLACK: Massive stake. And even though he had just
been CEO of Goldman Sachs before becoming Treasury
Secretary. Now, in most stages in American history,
that would be a scandal of such proportions that he
wouldn't be allowed in civilized society.

MOYERS: Yeah, like a conflict of interest, it seems.

BLACK: Massive conflict of interests.

MOYERS: So, how did he get away with it?

BLACK: I don't know whether we've lost our
capability of outrage. Or whether the cover up has
been so successful that people just don't have the
facts to react to it.

To say that Goldman has made out like bandits would be
an understatement of epic proportions.

Nobody does it better. Makes me feel sad for the rest....

C

Dr. Arnold Relman  the former editor of the New England Journal
of Medicine outlines it here.

Dr. Arnold Relman, author of A Second Opinion:
Rescuing America's Health Care, has outlined the
problem and offered solutions from his catbird seat
as physician, Harvard medical school professor and
journal editor. Rehlman was a guest on NPR's July
10 Science Friday program. He said none of the
leading proposals for health care reform, including
President Obama's "public option" plan, address the
underlying problem of spiraling costs due to a
system devoted to profits.

He said if the Obama plan passes "we'll spend
billions and billions more covering people that are
currently underinsured," adding that extending
health care is a good thing. "But it will break the
bank."

Rehlman's recommendations for fixing the health
care system are to:

    * Eliminate incentives for overpricing and
      under providing of care. 
    * Make the entire health care system non-profit. 
    * Eliminate insurance companies, the "middlemen"
      of health care. 
    * Have physicians and other clinical staff work
      in  multi-specialty health centers and be
      paid a salary by a government single-payer
      government.

He also spells out how to pay for a reformed health
care system. Eliminating private, for-profit
insurance would reduce health care costs by 40
percent. Eliminating unnecessary tests and
treatments would reduce costs by about 33 percent.
Bundling those savings along with the 10 to 15
percent allowed as tax deductions for employers
providing health care to workers and placing them
into a central non-profit system would achieve
health care for all, he said.

Of course this would go over like a lead balloon. Not just because
it would eliminate the health insurance industry. But because it
would also eliminate the outrageous sums that hospitals and specialists
are currently charging. Far too many people in medicine are there
only for the money.  And since the insurance companies are at least
complicit in this, they will do nothing about it.

C

A very big difference especially in business according to
to Katty Kay and Claire Shipman in the Washington Post.

And it's not only one study, but at least half a
dozen, from a broad spectrum of organizations such
as Columbia University, McKinsey & Co., Goldman
Sachs and Pepperdine University, that document a
clear relationship between women in senior
management and corporate financial success. By all
measures, more women in your company means better
performance.

Pepperdine found that the Fortune 500 firms with
the best records of putting women at the top were
18 to 69 percent more profitable than the median
companies in their industries. McKinsey looked at
the top-listed European companies and found that
greater gender diversity in management led to
higher-than-average stock performan

And why is this so ?

It's time to admit the obvious. Men and women are
different, and our management styles are different.
Research by the University of Pittsburgh and
Cambridge University, among others, finds that some
of those differences are intrinsic, thanks to
hormones.

Gender stereotypes aren't politically correct, but
the research broadly finds that testosterone can
make men more prone to competition and risk-taking.
Women, on the other hand, seem to be wired for
collaboration, caution and long-term results.

And in my opinion that is the crux of it. Long-term results.
The reason the Japanese have managed to beat our buts
for so long. The Yin and Yang. Short term profits do not
necessarily translate into long term profitability.

In fact quite the opposite can be true.

There's a sound business reason why Norway now
mandates that corporate boards be 40 percent
female. Why Iceland, after its embarrassing
financial mess, put major banks and its government
in female hands. And why Hermes, the only French
company to outperform expectations during the
recession, also has, you guessed it, a management
structure dominated by women.

Men take bigger risks. So when men make mistakes they
can be disastrous. Much less so with women.

C