Clothes do not make the man, manners do. Today's pirates do not sport
peg legs, sashes, eye patches and pointy hats. They do not fly the
Jolly Roger (though it would be a help to those of us
in the cheap seats if they did). Today's pirate ship is a private jet, the pirate
lair is an investment bank. Today's pirate wears Armani suits and
Rolex watches (maybe I am wrong here as fashion amongst the ruthless
may have moved on).
Pirates of antiquity were the rock stars of
Europe -- Blackbeard, Sir Henry Morgan and their brood relished notoriety,
all the better to terrorize their prey into ready submission to their
distinctive pirate flags. But today's pirates tend to hide their
identities, and if they do have a public persona, it's a mask of grave probity and aristocratic pretension. But if we had to
put a poster child's face on the
pirate enemy, Treasury Secretary
Henry Paulson would do nicely.
In his very informative piece, "Who is Henry Paulson?", Tom Eley
provides the information we need to understand the typical life
history of a modern-day pirate. Freshly hatched from Harvard
Business school in 1970, young Henry began his pirate career as a
staff assistant to an assistant secretary of defense from which he
transitioned smoothly to a position as assistant to John Ehrlichman,
organizer of the notorious “plumbers,” who was convicted of
obstruction of
justice, perjury and conspiracy (back when those were
still considered crimes even when commit- ted by the powerful). Henry
then slipped away unscathed by Watergate and went straight to a
position at the investment bank of Goldman Sachs, the flagship of the
pirate fleet, "becoming a partner in 1982, co-head of investment
banking in 1990, chief operating officer in 1994." In 1998 he staged
a coup and became CEO of Goldman Sachs.
The pirate captain that Henry replaced at Goldman Sachs, Jon Corzine,
went on to become first Senator from and then Governor of New Jersey,
a great center of organized criminal activity, but real status in the
modern pirate realm is associated with power at Goldman Sachs. For
instance, head buccaneer under the Clinton administration was former
Goldman Sachs CEO Robert Rubin, who will regain power under a possible
Obama regime.
Henry Paulson represents the virtual merger between the world of piracy and
government. High government officers such as Henry, Robert Zoellick,
and Rubin routinely cross back and forth between Goldman Sachs and
government, all the while financing national campaigns from their
pirate treasure (Henry gave over $336,000 to Republican candidates
between 1998 and 2006). Piracy and government form a seamless web.
Pirates are as ruthless with each other as they are with the public.
Henry has succeeded in sinking of Goldman Sachs' main rivals, Bear
Stearns, Lehman Brothers, and Merrill Lynch. Pirate greed knows no
bounds. Morgan Stanley, the only other major investment bank left standing (technically
now reincarnated as a "bank holding company", the better to position
themselves to raid the Treasury) must be experiencing a
cold sweat as it looks over its shoulder.
Pirates are never satisfied. They always pursue a greater treasure.
Today a $700 billion government subsidy. Tomorrow, what -- the
whole world?
