February 26, 2008 (LPAC)--Congestion Pricing, the plan to charge drivers $8-$21 for entering lower Manhattan, was proposed to Mayor Michael Bloomberg by the "Partnership for New York City." The Partnership, sometimes mis-identified as simply a "business association," ran a huge "research study" to formulate the proposal, and a propaganda drive to enact it, throughout 2005-2006.
The Partnership is the main visible element of the levers of power which Bloomberg turned over to the top trans-Atlantic financiers, functioning as a de facto steering committee for New York City since Bloomberg became Mayor.
There used to be the New York Chamber of Commerce and Industry -- since colonial times representing the city's business interests the way such groups operate in all cities. But in 1979, banker David Rockefeller created the "New York City Partnership," as a Chamber affiliate, to be an instrument for Rockefeller's Wall Street-London financier axis to steer local government policy and administration; as the group expresses it, to "work more directly with government and other civic groups to address broader social and economic problems in a `hands on' way."
In 2002, just after Bloomberg -- himself a 13-billionaire -- took City Hall, the old Chamber of Commerce disappeared into Rockefeller's group, now renamed "Partnership for New York City."
The Partnership describes itself as "a select group of two hundred CEOs (Partners) from New York City's top corporate, investment and entrepreneurial firms."
Certain of the group's leaders show up as pivotal promoters of the the corporatist, radical-austerity agenda which now features Bloomberg himself as the intended U.S. President through a third party or other means.
Among the most significant Partnership activists:
** Kathryn S. Wylde, President & CEO, Partnership for New York City. Ms. Wylde is seen publicly debating the opponents of the Mayor's Congestion Pricing inititive. She is a close political partner in "school reform" with Elizabeth Rohatyn, wife of fascist financier leader Felix Rohatyn.
** Partnership co-chairman Lloyd C. Blankfein, currently Chairman/CEO, Goldman Sachs & Co. Blankfein replaced former Goldman Sachs chairman Henry Paulson, who is now U.S. Treasury Secretary and a political ally.
** Founding (emeritus) Chairman David Rockefeller. As longtime chairman of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, he set the corporatist tone for many of New York City's current feudalist-theme governance projects.
Key Partnership Directors:
** Stephen Berger, Chairman, Odyssey Investment Partners, LLC. Berger's firm was founded by hedge fund pioneer Michael Steinhardt, who in 2006 began the public promotion of Bloomberg's Presidential candidacy. Berger was executive director of the Emergency Financial Control Board, the enforcement arm of Felix Rohatyn's Municipal Assistance Corporation ("Big MAC"), responsible for devastating the public infrastructure and workforce of New York City in the mid-1970s. Berger and Rohatyn are "discussion leaders" in Bloomberg's current drive for cutbacks in health care and other public services.
** Richard S. Fuld, Jr., Chairman & CEO, Lehman Brothers, who brought Felix Rohatyn out of retirement to be Fuld's advisor.
** Henry R. Kravis, founder Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. Notorious junk bond takeover king Kravis created the Partnership's own $110 million "New York City Investment Fund" and brought Kathryn Wylde into the Partenrhsip as the Fund's CEO.
** Rupert Murdoch, Chairman & CEO, News Corporation, the rightist British empire media baron who promotes the scheme to make Bloomberg the U.S. President.
** Steven Rattner, Managing Principal, Quadrangle Group LLC, manager of the personal fortune of Michael Bloomberg, former partner and protege of Felix Rohatyn at Lazard Freres.
** Wilbur L. Ross, Jr., Chairman & CEO, WL Ross & Co. LLC, known as the most ruthless of corporate takeover lords with a reputation for destroying the industrial firms he loots.
** Stephen A. Schwarzman, Chairman & CEO, The Blackstone Group, famed as an exemplar of corporate greed, whose $400 million income in 2006 prompted calls for revision of national tax laws.
** John A. Thain, Chairman & CEO, Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc., a co-leader of the French American Foundation with Felix Rohatyn. Merrill Lynch funded Bloomberg's climb into the oligarchy. His "Bloomberg Terminals" provided up-to-the-minute data for the world's central bankers and others, as they plunged society's credit resources into killer speculation such as derivatives and mortgage-backed securities.
