The Federal Reserve Bank of New York shaped Washington's response to the financial crisis late last year, which buoyed Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and other Wall Street firms. Goldman received speedy approval to become a bank holding company in September and a $10 billion capital injection soon after.

During that time, the New York Fed's chairman, Stephen Friedman, sat on Goldman's board and had a large holding in Goldman stock, which because of Goldman's new status as a bank holding company was a violation of Federal Reserve policy.

The New York Fed asked for a waiver, which, after about 2½ months, the Fed granted. While it was weighing the request, Mr. Friedman bought 37,300 more Goldman shares in December. They've since risen $1.7 million in value.

Mr. Friedman also was overseeing the search for a new president of the New York Fed, an officer who has a critical role in setting monetary policy at the Federal Reserve. The choice was a former Goldman executive.

The case illustrates what a tangle of overlapping interests can arise at a hybrid institution like the New York Federal Reserve Bank, especially as the U.S. government, in addressing the financial and economic turmoil, grows ever more deeply enmeshed in American business and banking.

Mr. Friedman, who once ran Goldman, says none of these events involved any conflicts. He says his job as chairman of the New York Fed isn't a policy-making one, that he didn't consider his purchases of more Goldman shares to conflict with Fed policy, and bought shares because they were very cheap.

Last week, following questions from The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Friedman, 71 years old, disclosed he would step down from the New York Fed at year end. He added: "I see no conflict whatsoever in owning shares."

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A Who's Who Tidbits for Perspective:

Maurice Strong is involved with Chicago’s Climate Exchange. Al Gore is chairman of a private equity firm called Generation Investment Management. That firm invests money from institutions and wealthy investors in companies that are going green. Generation Investment Management purchases carbon dioxide offsets. The co-founder of Generation Investment Management is former Goldman Sachs CEO Hank Paulson, who is currently the Secretary of the U.S. Treasury. Goldman Sachs bought 10% of Chicago’s Climate Exchange shares for $23 million. Chicago’s Climate Exchange owns half of the European Climate Exchange, Europe’s largest carbon trading company. 

Maurice Strong:  Chicago Climate Exchange’s board member. Canadian Maurice Strong has made a career and a fortune out of financial rip-offs. Strong served on the board of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (World Conservation Union) and was an advisor to the UN’s Kofi Annan. Among many other things, he was the first Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Program in the 1970’s and Secretary General of the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development, also known as the Earth Summit.

Goldman Sachs:  The largest shareholder of the Chicago Climate Exchange and the second largest shareholder of the InterContinental Exchange. In fact, Goldman Sachs put Al Gore into the carbon offset hedge fund business in 2003 when David Blood, a former CEO of Goldman Sachs Assets Management, along with two other former Goldman Sachs officers, helped Gore establish his firm, General Investment Management, which focuses on “Sustainable Investing” by peddling carbon offsets.

Jon Corzine:  He is now the Governor of NJ.  He retired from Goldman Sachs in 1999 after taking the firm public and receiving at least $320 million worth of its stock. He ran for the Senate in New Jersey in 2000, spending more than $60 million of his fortune to win the seat. The bubble of high-priced technology stocks began to burst in March 2000. In August 2000, the SEC issued a warning against aftermarket sales, also known as “laddering.” “I’ve never even heard the term ‘laddering’ before,” Corzine said.

However, Nicholas Maier of Cramer & Co. said it happened on Corzine’s watch. “For Corzine not to know of a common practice being utilized to generate and manipulate stock prices would be surprising,” Mr. Maier said. “He was obviously there during this time. I definitively saw his company engaged in illegal activity. They (the SEC) expressed to me that laddering is a trickier thing [to prove],” Maier said. “I will say it. They did it. They laddered. Whether the SEC can construct a case is a different story.”

Al Gore:  Owns a carbon trading business, Generation Investment Management.  They were banked with the Lehman Bros.  The Generation Investment Management business has considerable influence over the major carbon credit trading firms that currently exist.


Merrill Lynch:  Deeply involved in the Carbon trading business.  They are a founding member and primary sponsor of the U.K.-based Carbon Disclosure Project.  Merrill Lynch is headed by John A Thain who is a Goldman Sachs alumni.

Lehman Brothers:  Created a propaganda piece last year about climate change to make their investors keep getting high profits from the Kyoto carbon trade scheme and the support of huge public subventions. All that, of course, with the applause of the usual choir of politicians, the entire media and the Greens.

A year ago they couldn’t predict their bankruptcy but were predicting the climate 100 years ahead. Thousands of green militants have been using the Lehman report as a proof of global warming and impending chaos. The report is the basis for policies on climate change in Spain, Argentina and several other countries playing the progress game.

Chicago Climate Exchange:  The Exchange owes it existence in part to the Joyce Foundation, the Chicago-based liberal foundation philanthropy that provided $347,000 in grant support in 2000 for a preliminary study to test the viability of a market in carbon credits. On the CCX board of directors is the ubiquitous Maurice Strong, a Canadian industrialist and diplomat who since the 1970s has helped create an international policy agenda for the environmentalist movement.

Joyce Foundation:  Provided grant support to test the market in carbon credits.  Barack Hussein Obama sat on their Board for 8 years.