Trump's Chief Economic Advisor Resigns

by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org - Home - Stephen Lendman)

On Tuesday, Trump's National Economic Council director Gary Cohn announced his resignation. 

Reportedly it's over the president intending to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, discussed in a previous article.

Cohn is a Goldman Sachs alum, appointed its president, co-CEO and director in June 2006.

The company is notorious for making money the old-fashioned way - by fraud, grand theft, market manipulation, scamming investors, bribing politicians, having its executives in top administration posts, and getting open-ended low or no interest rate bailouts when needed.

Its business model and culture assure billions of bonus dollars for company officials, complicit traders, and others on the take. 

The firm is a crime family like other major Wall Street predators.

Its grand theft continues unabated, none of its top officials ever fined, prosecuted and imprisoned. Current chairman and CEO Lloyd Blankfein earlier called its operations "doing God's work."

As National Economic Council director, Cohn was a key architect of Trump infrastructure privatization scheme to let corporate predators buy public assets cheap.

According to the Securities and Exchange Commission, Goldman Sachs hopes to profit hugely from the scheme, Cohn representing the firm in the White House.

He and fellow Goldman alum Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin played key roles in drafting the great GOP tax cut heist, benefitting corporate predators and super-rich individuals like themselves, Trump and congressional millionaires - at the expense of most Americans.

NYT editors took full advantage of Cohn's resignation to continue its daily anti-Trump onslaught, calling the former Goldman boss one of "the sensible adults in the room," ignoring his dark side, saying:

"(F)or all his flaws (relating to his policy initiatives discussed above, he) represents the high-water mark for economic thinking in this administration" - perhaps for America's privileged class alone at the expense of most others.

He's expected to stay on for some weeks before leaving. The Times called him a "free-trade-oriented Democrat."

US trade with other nations is profoundly unfair for ordinary Americans.

Millions of workers lost jobs because of destructive NAFTA and other bilateral trade deals.

Millions more suffer from neoliberal harshness - in part, related to trade policy and offshoring high-paid industrial and other jobs to low-wage countries.

According to the Times, Trump's announcement on steel and aluminum tariffs "was the most immediate catalyst for Mr. Cohn's departure, according to people familiar with his thinking," adding:

"Possibilities he has considered for a next step…include opening up his own investment firm or, according to two people familiar with his thinking, a more senior job in the Trump administration."

Names and faces change in all US administrations, Cohn the latest figure to move on, surely not the last.

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