Platinum Group Metals Ltd. becomes supporter of GATA

1:16a ET Tuesday, October 8, 2002

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:

The Reuters dispatch appended here about
U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm may explain a lot about
why Wall Street and its investment banks got
everything they wanted from the Senate
Banking Committee when Gramm was its
chairman. Lately he has been the committee's
ranking Republican minority member.

No doubt Senator Gramm will keep voting
Wall Street's way in his last months in the
Senate, even though his having been bought
off is now a matter of public record.

CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.

* * *

Senator Gramm to join UBS Warburg

By Greg Cresci

NEW YORK (Reuters) -- Sen. Phil Gramm,
R-Texas, will soon become vice chairman of UBS
Warburg, the investment banking arm of
Switzerland's biggest bank, UBS Warburg said
on Monday.

Gramm, who will take up the private sector
post when his Senate term ends later this
year, follows a well-trodden path of key
legislators who join top Wall Street firms. A
member of Congress for the past 24 years,
Gramm has specialized in financial issues and
co-authored historic legislation in 1999 that
repealed a prohibition on companies offering
banking, brokerage and insurance operations
under one roof.

Known as the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Financial
Services Modernization Act, the legislation
gave rise to the quot;one stop shoppingquot; model
adopted by such financial powerhouses as
Citigroup Inc. and J.P. Morgan Chase amp; Co.
The results of those diversification efforts have
been mixed however, and critics charge that
such breadth engenders damaging conflicts of
interest.

Gramm, 60, will split his time between
Washington, D.C. and New York, and will work
closely with Vice Chairmen Lord Brittan and
Ken Costa, who are based in London, UBS
Warburg said.

UBS Warburg is part of UBS AG, which has
more than 70,000 employees worldwide and
does business in more 40 countries. As an
investment bank, UBS Warburg specializes
in areas such as stock and bond offerings,
corporate lending, and merger advisory.

quot;Having spent my professional life working on
finance-related issues, I look forward to
bringing that experience and knowledge to
bear on behalf of UBS Warburg clients
worldwide,quot; Gramm said in a prepared
statement.

A UBS Warburg spokeswoman, Christine Walton,
declined to comment on Gramm's compensation
package, citing firm policy. The senator's
starting date depends on the Senate schedule,
but will come before year-end, Walton said.

Global banks seeking to enhance their cachet
often court top U.S. political figures, whose
knowledge and contacts can widen their scope.

Last December, Citigroup named Stanley
Fischer, former deputy managing director of
the International Monetary Fund, as vice
chairman. Fischer reports to former U.S.
Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin in that
position.

In another example, John Kasich, former
chairman of the U.S. House Budget Committee,
went to investment bank Lehman Brothers
early last year. And Vernon Jordan, a well-known
Washington lawyer and confidant of former U.S.
President Bill Clinton, took a job at private
investment bank Lazard Freres amp; Co. in 2000.

Gramm plans to meet in coming months with
heads of various investment banking sectors
at UBS Warburg to develop strategy, Walton
said.

quot;We hired him for what he knows, not who he
knows,quot; Walton said. quot;It's very much a full-
time job.quot;