Like Big Pharma running FDA

After the WSJ ran an article earlier this week on the apparently conflicted trades of NY Fed Chief Stephen Friedman, a former Goldman Sachs head, today Friedman resigned, admitting no such conflict or misdeed.

Felix Salmon, now blogging at Reuters, says this is a good thing.

Jim Cramer and a few of the panelists at CNBC's Fast Money this morning lauded the "public service" attitude of those at Goldman. The minority exceptions on the panel saw it as more of a Trojan horse than a public service.

Guambat agrees. If it is a good public service for Goldman connections to run the country's public financial institutions, why don't we expand on that an encourage
Big Pharma boys and girls to do sabbaticals at FDA, and failing auto execs to run the agencies which regulate auto safety and standards?

It's preposterous. Geithner ought to be challenged as well. Surely there are other applicants for such positions.

Guambat blogged over two years ago about Goldie as a world-wide political hedge fund. Today we see other such posts:

Sacks of gold
Is Goldman Sachs Controlling Washington?

Guambat does not believe in an absolute prohibition against Goldies in government, but reckons they should be put through the most rigorous form of scrutiny from selection to every decision made to make sure the effective beneficiary is not the Goldman empire. Goldman gift horses must be looked at in the mouth.