Obama nominates Goldman Sachs donor for ambassadorship

[Warlord]

President Obama on Thursday said he will nominate Goldman Sachs banker Bruce Heyman, a top bundler to his 2012 campaign, to be his ambassador to Canada.

Heyman is the managing director of Private Wealth Management at Goldman Sachs & Co. and one of the few executives at the financial services giant to openly support Obama.

He and his wife, Vicki, hosted a fundraiser for Obama at their Chicago home back in 2007 — when Hillary Clinton was still the Democratic front-runner — and have jointly bundled $1.7 million for the president, according to records obtained by The New York Times.

Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/global-affa...#ixzz2fQmixCbQ
Follow us: @thehill on Twitter | TheHill on Facebook

[JustinTime]

Don't you guys think we should just do away with most ambassadorships and embassies? In this age of instant communication we generally do not need them and they are nothing but expensive handouts for cronies.

[Zippyjuan]

The job of most ambasadors is hosting parties and schmoozing. Rich people can host better parties. The real work is usually done by the career State Department people.

[HOLLYWOOD]

BTW Zippy, Rich people figure out how to use 'Other people's money' aka Smoozing on my dime... that has a jingle that always seems to go with Government Sachs.

AH what the hell, they own the U.S. Treasury department, why not the state department too.

[enhanced_deficit]

That is peanuts in return.
With a friendly nTool in the White House, GS puppet masters are making tons of money wheelin and dealin:

Dow Jones Industrials to Add Goldman Sachs

http://www.bloomberg.com/.../dow-jon...an-s...‎
Sep 10, 2013 - Goldman Sachs Group Inc. will be added to the Dow Jones Industrial Average ...

[Zippyjuan]

"Why Being An Ambassador Will Cost You"- video at link.
http://www.bloomberg.com/video/the-c...YkR9RJoRw.html

Ambassadors are expected to pay a lot out of their own pockets though housing is free. According to the piece, the cost of being an ambassador in London it costs about $1 million a year.

http://www.businessweek.com/articles...dot-ambassador

To land a high-profile ambassadorship, it helps to have raised a ton of money for a successful presidential candidate and know how to throw a good party. That’s one reason why President Obama is considering Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour as the next U.S. ambassador to the Court of St. James’s in the U.K. Wintour raised more than $500,000 for Obama and inspired the “Runway to Win” fashion line that brought in upwards of $40 million for his campaign.

But that’s just the price of admission. The funds embassies receive from the U.S. Department of State don’t begin to cover the high costs of the frequent parties and dinners ambassadors are expected to host. Some wind up paying more than $1 million a year out of their own pockets, according to one of the president’s top donors who requested anonymity because he didn’t want to discuss private conversations.

This is why the high-profile postings to places like France and Italy typically go to wealthy donors, rather than career diplomats. The current ambassador to the U.K., Louis Susman, a former Chicago investment banker, holds three to four social events a week, says an embassy spokeswoman, who declined to give a cost estimate for these soirees. “Political ambassadors have more resources and are able to entertain a little bit more lavishly,” says Mel Sembler, a Florida Republican fundraiser and former ambassador to Australia under George H.W. Bush and to Italy under George W. Bush. “We did spend more than our budget, because that’s the way we entertain.”