In the current issue of the Capital Research Center’s newsletter Foundation Watch, Fred Lucas looks into the historically cozy relationship that finance giant Goldman Sachs has enjoyed with the highest levels of government, and the expanding influence the firm is poised to exert amid the present financial turmoil.

In recent years the powerhouse bank Goldman Sachs has supplied Treasury secretaries to both Republican and Democratic administrations. A Goldman veteran serves as President Bush’s chief of staff, while one runs the New York Stock Exchange and another lives in the New Jersey governor’s mansion. Its politics skew left, and as the company’s competitors on Wall Street go belly up, Goldman, a friend of Big Government, remains profitable and its infl uence grows.

Lucas also cited our own Myron Ebell, referencing CEI’s opposition to former Goldman Sachs chairman Henry Paulson’s nomination as Treasury Secretary in 2006, due in part to his close connections to The Nature Conservancy.

No conservative administration should consider appointing anyone who works for the Nature Conservancy to any position and certainly not to one carrying the high responsibilities of Treasury Secretary. The Nature Conservancy has served as the agent for turning millions of acres of productive private land into federally-owned land and has made huge profits doing so. The question that needs to be asked is, what will Mr. Paulson be able to do as Treasury Secretary to benefit the Nature Conservancy and its big corporate partners.