The Israeli Who Runs the Obama White House
Written by Christopher Bollyn
Thursday, 06 November 2008
Who is Peter Orszag?
One of the key players in the Obama administration’s $900 billion economic stimulus package is Obama’s new budget director Peter R. Orszag.
Orszag, 40, is the director of the Office of Management and Budget, the arm of the White House responsible for crafting the federal budget and overseeing the effectiveness of federal programs. He worked closely with Rahm Emanuel in the Clinton administration - when the disastrous NAFTA was passed - and was one of the first Obama appointees to be approved.
”In the coming years, no bureaucrat will be as decisive as Peter Orszag,” Ezra Klein wrote recently in The American Prospect. So, who is Peter Richard Orszag and what kind of decisions will he make with the budget he controls?
Oddly, Orszag’s background has received virtually no attention in the media. At this critical moment, however, it would be foolish to ignore the troubling background of Obama’s budget director, which deserves to be looked at very carefully.
Orszag, for example, could start by explaining exactly what happened to the Icelandic economy. Orszag was, after all, the founder and president of the economic consultancy firm which advised the Central Bank of Iceland - before it went bankrupt. How did Icelandic banks become so indebted? Ask Peter Orszag.
Orszag is an economist who served six years in the Clinton administration (1993-8) under Robert E. Rubin, the former treasury secretary who recently resigned from his senior position at the woefully mismanaged and nearly bankrupt Citigroup. The fact that Orszag was a protege of the now disgraced Rubin certainly does not bode well for the Obama administration.
Rubin strongly opposed the regulation of derivatives when such regulation was proposed in 1997. Credit derivatives of mortgage-backed securities were the key reason for the recent failure of a number of large financial institutions, including AIG and Citigroup.
In 1999, Rubin joined Citigroup as a board member and a participant "in strategic managerial and operational matters of the Company.” The Wall Street Journal noted that Citigroup shareholders suffered losses of more than 70 percent since Rubin joined the firm and that he encouraged changes that led the firm to the brink of collapse. In December 2008, investors filed a lawsuit contending that Citigroup executives, including Rubin, sold shares at inflated prices while concealing the firm’s risks.
Orszag, a Jew, served on the president’s Council of Economic Advisers in 1993, under Rubin, when the Israeli Rahm Emanuel, Clinton’s senior adviser, was pushing the disastrous NAFTA legislation through Congress.
Prior to joining the Clinton team Orszag was an economic adviser for the Russian Ministry of Finance in Moscow from 1992-93. This was a period of rampant financial criminality during which many Russian mineral assets came under the control of the so-called Jewish oligarchs who became instant billionaires. Most of these oligarchs fled Russia when their crimes were exposed and now live in Britain or Israel, where they obtained citizenship.
Born in Boston on December 16, 1968, Orszag graduated from Princeton University in 1991. He then attended the London School of Economics, where he earned a degree in 1992 and where he obtained his PhD in 1997. The London School of Economics was established by members of the Fabian Society, who believed in advancing socialism through gradual reforms.
The Fabian Society is a British socialist movement, whose purpose is to advance the principles of Social democracy via gradualist and reformist, rather than revolutionary means. The ideology of the Fabians is said to be described in the quote, "Fabianism feeds on Capitalism, but excretes Communism."
In 1998, after serving in the Clinton administration, Orszag co-founded an economic consulting group company with his brother and Joseph Stiglitz called Sebago Associates, where he served as president through 2007. The firm's clients have included the World Bank, the Nordic Council of Ministers, and most notably, the Central Bank of Iceland. The once prosperous economy of Iceland has been devastated by the current economic crisis, which its citizens say was carried out by a gang of financial criminals who followed disastrous policies and advice - provided by Peter Orszag and Company.
Americans need to be vigilant with dangerous "Young Turks" like Peter Orszag and Rahm Emanuel running the Obama White House and the U.S. budget.
Written by Christopher Bollyn
Thursday, 06 November 2008
Who is Peter Orszag?
One of the key players in the Obama administration’s $900 billion economic stimulus package is Obama’s new budget director Peter R. Orszag.
Orszag, 40, is the director of the Office of Management and Budget, the arm of the White House responsible for crafting the federal budget and overseeing the effectiveness of federal programs. He worked closely with Rahm Emanuel in the Clinton administration - when the disastrous NAFTA was passed - and was one of the first Obama appointees to be approved.
”In the coming years, no bureaucrat will be as decisive as Peter Orszag,” Ezra Klein wrote recently in The American Prospect. So, who is Peter Richard Orszag and what kind of decisions will he make with the budget he controls?
Oddly, Orszag’s background has received virtually no attention in the media. At this critical moment, however, it would be foolish to ignore the troubling background of Obama’s budget director, which deserves to be looked at very carefully.
Orszag, for example, could start by explaining exactly what happened to the Icelandic economy. Orszag was, after all, the founder and president of the economic consultancy firm which advised the Central Bank of Iceland - before it went bankrupt. How did Icelandic banks become so indebted? Ask Peter Orszag.
Orszag is an economist who served six years in the Clinton administration (1993-8) under Robert E. Rubin, the former treasury secretary who recently resigned from his senior position at the woefully mismanaged and nearly bankrupt Citigroup. The fact that Orszag was a protege of the now disgraced Rubin certainly does not bode well for the Obama administration.
Rubin strongly opposed the regulation of derivatives when such regulation was proposed in 1997. Credit derivatives of mortgage-backed securities were the key reason for the recent failure of a number of large financial institutions, including AIG and Citigroup.
In 1999, Rubin joined Citigroup as a board member and a participant "in strategic managerial and operational matters of the Company.” The Wall Street Journal noted that Citigroup shareholders suffered losses of more than 70 percent since Rubin joined the firm and that he encouraged changes that led the firm to the brink of collapse. In December 2008, investors filed a lawsuit contending that Citigroup executives, including Rubin, sold shares at inflated prices while concealing the firm’s risks.
Orszag, a Jew, served on the president’s Council of Economic Advisers in 1993, under Rubin, when the Israeli Rahm Emanuel, Clinton’s senior adviser, was pushing the disastrous NAFTA legislation through Congress.
Prior to joining the Clinton team Orszag was an economic adviser for the Russian Ministry of Finance in Moscow from 1992-93. This was a period of rampant financial criminality during which many Russian mineral assets came under the control of the so-called Jewish oligarchs who became instant billionaires. Most of these oligarchs fled Russia when their crimes were exposed and now live in Britain or Israel, where they obtained citizenship.
Born in Boston on December 16, 1968, Orszag graduated from Princeton University in 1991. He then attended the London School of Economics, where he earned a degree in 1992 and where he obtained his PhD in 1997. The London School of Economics was established by members of the Fabian Society, who believed in advancing socialism through gradual reforms.
The Fabian Society is a British socialist movement, whose purpose is to advance the principles of Social democracy via gradualist and reformist, rather than revolutionary means. The ideology of the Fabians is said to be described in the quote, "Fabianism feeds on Capitalism, but excretes Communism."
In 1998, after serving in the Clinton administration, Orszag co-founded an economic consulting group company with his brother and Joseph Stiglitz called Sebago Associates, where he served as president through 2007. The firm's clients have included the World Bank, the Nordic Council of Ministers, and most notably, the Central Bank of Iceland. The once prosperous economy of Iceland has been devastated by the current economic crisis, which its citizens say was carried out by a gang of financial criminals who followed disastrous policies and advice - provided by Peter Orszag and Company.
Americans need to be vigilant with dangerous "Young Turks" like Peter Orszag and Rahm Emanuel running the Obama White House and the U.S. budget.
<shaking in his boots>
