… "Wow, that’s even more disturbing" … - about 9:50AM

Today’s third 1/2 hour of The Current (about 9:32 to 9:55 AM across Canada’s time zones) is a must-hear.  Streaming audio as it happens by region is available here. This is CBC’s promo for the segment on their site.

And … Earlier this month, banking giant Goldman Sachs shocked Wall Street by posting a 1.8 Billion dollar profit in its first quarter earnings and announcing that it wants to pay off half of the 10-Billion-dollar loan it got from the U.S. Government last fall. We’ll talk to Pulitzer-Prize winning investigative reporter, David Cay Johnston, about the company’s long history and how Goldman Sachs has managed to survive and thrive at almost every turn, shaping decades of American economic policy in the process.

I knew that this segment was going to be special, because they put the promo for it on about a week ago, and it never came up.  Well, the lawyers must have finished their work because it’s being broadcast across the country now and … Holy $$@#%!

It’s basically an interview with David Cay Johnson.  Let’s just say it didn’t pull any punches.  CBC usually has podcasts available shortly after the program.  August Dvorak so help me, this thing has got to go up where Google can see it.

UPDATE: Hope you caught the show on air, ’cause looks like that segment’s not going to podcast. Pity

………………………………

D’oh!

Another part of The Current’s web site now has the Whole Show Blow-by-Blow: The Current for April 27, 2009, including all three 1/2 hours as listenable segments.  The first half hour covers swine flu in Nova Scotia, which might be of interest to Doomers who read my brief weekend post.  However, the real must-hear segment is the third 1/2 hour.  Here’s their intro.  Go to the April 27th site to get a version with links and the listenable audio.

Part 3: Goldman Sachs

We started this segment with a clip from The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart riffing on Goldman Sachs right after the banking giant shocked analysts with a first quarter profit of 1.8 Billion dollars.

And to be fair, the company also announced that it wants to pay off half of what Jon Stewart correctly identified as a 10-Billion dollar loan from the U.S. Government. And Jon Stewart is right about another thing too. The relationship between Goldman Sachs and the U.S. Federal Government is tight and it pretty much has been for as long as the company has been around.

According to David Cay Johnston, that’s allowed Goldman Sachs to turn itself into one of the most powerful and influential companies in the country …able to bend and shape the economic policies of one U.S. Administration after another.

David Cay Johnston is a Pulitzer-Prize-winning investigative reporter who teaches at Syracuse University’s law school. He’s also the author of Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense and Stick You With The Bill. He was in Rochester, New York.

………………….

LATER: Doom’s transcript is now available

Which is to say, transcript to appear under here, hopefully in good time for a change, once I get my mits on the MP3.

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