JANUARY 13, , 2007 – ARTICLE PUBLISHED BY JAMES PETRAS, PROFESSOR (EMERITUS), BINGHAMTON UNIVERSITY, NEW YORK

2007 – ARTICLE PUBLISHED BY JAMES PETRAS, PROFESSOR (EMERITUS), BINGHAMTON UNIVERSITY, NEW YORK
"Within the financial ruling class,…political leaders come from the public and private equity banks, namely Wall Street - especially Goldman Sachs, Blackstone, the Carlyle Group and others.  They organize and fund both major parties and their electoral campaigns.  They pressure, negotiate and draw up the most comprehensive and favorable legislation on global strategies and sectoral policies...They pressure the government to "bailout" bankrupt and failed speculative firms and to balance the budget by lowering social expenditures instead of raising taxes on speculative "windfall" profits...These private equity banks are involved in every sector of the economy, in every region of the world economy and increasingly speculate in the conglomerates which are aquired.  Much of the investment funds now in the hands of the US investment banks, hedge funds and other sectors of the financial ruling class originated in the profits extracted from workers in the manufacturing and service sector." Global Research - January 13, 2007