the dark side of Goldman

With 45 minutes left to go, only one thing matters: what does Goldman think (the other issue of whether Jan Hatzius shared a meal with Bill Dudley at the Pound and Pence will remain unknown until the next batch of Dudley daily "minutes" are released in a few months). So for all those scrambling for an edge in a centrally-planned world, here it is, via Goldman's Francesco Garzarelli : "Turning to today’s FOMC announcement and press conference, our US Economics team expect Chairman Bernanke to stick to the same message on ‘tapering’ of bond purchases used in previous pronouncements on the matter, but also emphasize that reducing the expansion of the balance sheet does not imply that the Fed is anywhere close to hiking rates. We think this is broadly what bondholders are also expecting to hear."

who is William C. Dudley:
http://www.newyorkfed.org/aboutthefed/orgchart/dudley.html

Following the release of Bill Dudley's daily schedules from the beginning of 2009, through September 30, 2010, there have been some amusing, if not very surprising, disclosures. Among them: Dudley's penchant to meet with Jamie Dimon, Vik Pandit and, of course, former boss Lloyd Blankfein. Other meetings include Sullivan and Cromwell chairman, and the banking cartel's personal chief attorney H. Rodgin Cohen. Those are to be expected: after all Dudley has to conduct the New York Fed policy exactly in accordance with Wall Street's expectations, and per Wall Street's recommendations. What is a little more surprising is that on February 9, 2009, Bill Dudley hosted a lunch roundtable with hedge fund SAC Capital... Perhaps now Dudley knows almost as much about the chances of various Phase II/III drugs to make it to market as ole' Stevie himself. Additionally, on May 14 Dudley invited Ken Griffin and Adam Cooper from Citadel into his office at about 2:00 pm. One wonders just what the quid pro quo between the New York Fed and Citadel may have been, over and above of the traditional dark pool securities purchasing relationship between the two entities of course. Where it gets a little confusing is why Dudley had to have two informal meetings with the man who singlehandedly determines US fiscal and monetary policy: Goldman's Jan Hatzius, first on March 11, and then, less than a month later, on April 6, both times as the Pound and Pence. And where it gets downright bizarre, is trying to explain why Bill Dudley on June 11, 2009, had to bring over one still unknown Brian Sack, now pervasively known as the head of the Fed's Open Market Operations Committee, to not only walk over to Goldman Sachs for a meet and greet (as opposed to Goldman coming over to the NY Fed), but specifically "introducing Brian Sack to the Goldman FX Committee" between 4:00 and 4:30 PM on that day. Just which of Brian's myriad functions is the one that requires the participation of Goldman's FX team? Last time we checked, purchasing bonds and MBS in POMO operations had little if any impact on Goldman's FX trading flow...

But that's not all... In fact the very first official presentation of Bill Dudley of his market manipulation henchman occurred on April 16, 2009 to none other than Fed Expert Network head Larry Meyer of Macroeconomic Advisors, the same man whose on screen "intelligence" was obliterated by David Einhorn recently, and whose only value added it appears is to sell FOMC inside data to such high paying clients as Pimco, a peculiar artifact that was detailed by Zero Hedge long before 99% of America had even heard of expert network, and the fact that they peddle primarily in inside information.

And just in case anyone wonders if Larry Meyer is worth his monthly retainer in FOMC data, fear not: below are just his meetings with Bill Dudley:
April 16, 2009: telephone call with Larry Meyer (with Brian Sack in tow);
July 31, 2009: telephone call with Larry Meyer
March 3, 2010: telephone call with Larry Meyer
June 30, 2010: telephone call with Larry Meyer

Not bad access for a consultant. Only Lloyd Blankfein had Dudley's ear 5 times according to the official record.

And speaking of those with a hotline to Mr. Dudley, it appears it is not only consultant friendly. Below we summarize the meeting between Mr. Dudley and one Jon Hilsenrath:
February 5, 2009: meeting with Jon Hilsenrath, WSJ, and Nik Deogun, deputy managing director. Great to establish the groundwork early on, eh.
April 8, 2009: meeting with Jon Hilsenrath, WSJ
October 22, 2009: telephone call with Jon Hilsenrath
December 4, 2009: background call with Jon Hilsenrath
March 31, 2010: background meeting with Jon Hilsenrath
May 12, 2010: Hilsenrath chat
June 11, 2010: Phone interview with Jon Hilsenrath

So next time you question Jon's "articles" on the Fed, think twice: chances are he just may have a deeper throat at the Fed than you...

And one last, and modestly disturbing thing... While the AIG near-collapse necessitated nearly daily meetings with with every single Wall Street banker, and often times scrambling far and wide to prevent a systemic collapse, Mr. Dudley's schedule around the time of the flash crash in May 2010, both before and after, had the following curious schedule on May 7th, the "day after" - 9:00 - 10:00 AM : FSB plenary teleconference re: situation in financial markets... followed promptly by a "Disclosure Discussion", which lasted from 10:30 am until 4:30 pm... We are rather curious about just what transpires during these "Disclosure Discussions" - after al the only other time Dudley had one was on May 12, a week after the flash crash between 2:00 and 2:30 pm... promptly followed by one of the abovementioned Hilsenrath chats.

Why do we bring up Hilsenrath's editorial control by the New York Fed? For this reason:






regards,
oscarjp