Washington Post Shills for Henry Paulson
The headline of a front page article in the Washington Post tells readers how Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson changed his approach to the economy in response to "this storm."
That is so sweet of the Post. We are looking at an entirely preventable economic catastrophe that was brought on by the policies supported by Mr. Paulson and the rest of the Bush administration, as well the Greenspan-Bernanke Fed. And, these were policies that Mr. Paulson personally profited from, earning hundreds of millions of dollars in his years at Goldman Sachs.
But in order to avoid reminding readers of Mr. Paulson's culpability, the Post describes the economic crisis as a "storm," implying that it was some sort of unforeseeable natural disaster that came out of the sky. This is the sort of reporting that you would have expected from Pravda in the days of the Soviet Union.
Paulson, Bush, Greenspan, etc., and any number of Democrats who enabled this to happen by getting in bed with Bankers, Insurance, Investment, etc.
Look, we know what Republicans do, but if we don't identify and publicize the identity of the Democrats who not only helped cause this crisis but are continuing their misconduct in how we're supposed to get out of this, then nothing will change.
Will Oabma appoint to his Administration any of the Democrat miscreants I refer to?
Will Obama continue in this form of governance, where Wall Street and the Corporate Boys come first?
What percentage of bailout money will go to business as usual?
Yeah, Paulson will fix it, him and Dodd and Schumer. Maybe Phil Gramm can help out too.
November 18, 2008 9:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
You're looking at the wrong newspaper. Get Hank's story from the horse's mouth in today's New York Times:
Fighting the Financial Crisis, One Challenge at a Time
By HENRY M. PAULSON Jr.
Published November 18, 2008, New York Times Op-Ed
November 18, 2008 9:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
So I read Paulson's non-mea culpa in the Times and? According to him the down-turn in the housing market is the cause of all our woes. Bull. Housing markets have been rising and falling since there have been housing markets and has never inevitably resulted in what our economy is experiencing today.
Either way it's cut, Paulson is nothing more than a wage ape. He is either in way over his head, just plain dumb, or working for the Street - the country be damned.
November 18, 2008 11:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
In the byzantine structure of the White House and the Executive Office of the President we have two competing organizations, the Council of Economic Advisors which has only a Chairman and two other members and a small staff of economists and statisticians located in the Executive Office of the President. In the White House Office, we have the U. S. National Economic Council headed by an Assistant to the President for Economic Policy who serves as the Director. Its functions are to coordinate policy-making for domestic and international economic issues, coordinate economic policy advice for the President, ensure that policy decisions and programs are consistent with the President's economic goals, and monitor implementation of the President's economic policy agenda. The council consists of President and key cabinet members and agency heads.
I propose expanding the Council of Economic Advisors to at least 10 prominent financial and economic experts roughly duplicating President-Elect Obama’s current economic advisors. I further propose that the National Economic Council, the Office for Economic Policy. I next propose the creation of the Office of Economic Recovery and Stabilization with Sheila Barr as Assistant to President for Economic Recovery and Stabilization and Office Director-Moving the entire TARP and future variations of recovery programs to that office. Take it out of Treasury, it has sufficient duties without this program and it changes the current difficulty in both the role of Treasury Secretary and the possible nominee. It further allows the program to be expanded, contracted or abolished at will of the President and further emphasizes the President as the Chief architect of Helping America recovers. The combined office would also be in best position to recommend systemic regulatory changes to overhaul our present regulatory or non regulatory structure.
Eventually, we will need to create a new unified Financial Systems Regulatory Agency merging the SEC, Comptroller of the Currency (bank regulation components) Office of Thrift Supervision (eliminate the distinction between thrift and bank for regulatory purposes), FDIC, Pension Guaranty Fund and oversight over the Federal Reserve and all financial exchanges which would now require a license from the FSRA. While the Fed and FDIC and Fund remain separate functions, the regulatory aspects of each entity will be ceded to the FSRA. Lastly I propose the new agency have joint oversight with State governments over interstate insurance companies.
November 18, 2008 9:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think we are witnessing the biggest rip off in history. This is all too convenient. And why on earth are we letting the very people who created this mess oversee the solution? Our congresspersons are either duplicit in this or they are the dumbest SOBs that ever lived. The CNBC tally so far is that $4.28 trillion has been handed over or committed. What I see, right or wrong, is workers 401's going in the tank with that very money being handed out to somebody else. This has the flavor of how the nation was scammed on Iraq with the same and all too familiar result that Bush and his political appointees have given us for eight years.
November 18, 2008 10:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
thepeople,
During his career, Paulson has made a lot of friends in the banking and investment community, and he must take care of them before, if ever, he concerns himself with Joe Six Pack.
My problem isn't with Paulson, I know what to expect (or what to not expect) from a Bush appointee, my problem is with Congress.
In scandals this big there has to be criminal activity, fiduciary irresponsibility and/or other egregious actions. Lets see if any federal or state prosecutors are digging into this and see if anyone goes to jail or is forced to give up their ill gotten gains. And this goes for the actions during the bailout too.
November 18, 2008 11:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
Right. Talk about egregious actions, it was Congress and Clinton in '99 who passed the bill that basically wiped out Glass-Steagle. (Animals tend to walk out when their cage doors are opened.)
I doubt that the investigations, trials and jailing of the Street culprits will ever happen given Congress's fear that its dirty finger prints will be all over the evidence.
November 18, 2008 12:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nothing will happen. Bush lied us into the Iraq war that has cost in excess of 4000 American lives and nobody in our government gives a damn that it happened. Nobody makes mistakes this big except by intent. Obama has already indicated he won't go after the criminals who have done this. That leaves only the American people. I'm a Vietnam vet and don't own a gun and by most standards I'm over the hill. It's looking more and more that people like me and a whole lot of others will have to take up arms again to defend this country - again. WTF. Only a blind man can't see what's coming.
November 18, 2008 12:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
"My problem isn't with Paulson, I know what to expect (or what to not expect) from a Bush appointee, my problem is with Congress."
Me, too. Congress wrote yet another blank check. And, surprise! Barney Frank--a leader of the rush to the bailout that was going to save Main street--is now doing the "I'm so shocked" at a Congressional hearing. Frank was busy storming at Paulson today as though Frank and the rest in Congress didn't just hand Paulson the hundreds of billions of taxpayer money he appears to be misusing. Barney is "shocked"that the taxpayer money he gave Paulson doesn't seem to be doing much good, helping any small time borrowers or mitigating the foreclosures? Nonsense. Congress could have written the legislation to be perfectly clear, if that is what they wanted.
The pattern is something like this:
-Create or further hype a real crisis with the help of the corporate owned media.
-Rush through legislation with the help of the corporate owned media (Congress to the "rescue")
-Outright defy the objections of the vast majority of your constituents and vote yes anyway.
-Pass legislation that gives plenary power to somebody outside of Congress, so Congress can then blame that person and pretend it wasn't both parties in Congress that knowingly enabled whatever happens.
-Don't bother to inform the one being blamed (Paulson in this case) that he will be blamed. The one being blamed already gets it and will anticipate the blame show. The one being blamed will know Congress must divert blame so they can keep their seats and do another giveaway all over again next month.
What I fear now, is why Obama left his Senate seat so early. Surely he must prepare for office, but is there some more really objectionable legislation coming down the Congressional pike? Is there something coming that he doesn't want his name on as it would tarnish his credibility as a new president?
It looks to me as though both parties in Congress are helping to rush to finish what Bush started before Bush leaves office. Many in the public still mistakenly blame Bush-- and not both parties in Congress --for all our problems.
November 18, 2008 2:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
He won't have to say PRESENT
November 18, 2008 3:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Selected Quotes from Wikipedia
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Eugene_V._Debs
As a rule, large capitalists are Republicans and small capitalists are Democrats, but workingmen must remember that they are all capitalists, and that the many small ones, like the fewer large ones, are all politically supporting their class interests, and this is always and everywhere the capitalist class.
Of course, Socialism is violently denounced by the capitalist press and by all the brood of subsidized contributors to magazine literature, but this only confirms the view that the advance of Socialism is very properly recognized by the capitalist class as the one cloud upon the horizon which portends an end to the system in which they have waxed fat, insolent and despotic through the exploitation of their countless wage-working slaves.
The capitalist class is represented by the Republican, Democratic, Populist and Prohibition parties, all of which stand for private ownership of the means of production, and the triumph of any one of which will mean continued wage-slavery to the working class.
The Republican and Democratic parties, or, to be more exact, the Republican-Democratic party, represent the capitalist class in the class struggle. They are the political wings of the capitalist system and such differences as arise between them relate to spoils and not to principles.
Deny it as may the cunning capitalists who are clear-sighted enough to perceive it, or ignore it as may the torpid workers who are too blind and unthinking to see it, the struggle in which we are engaged today is a class struggle, and as the toiling millions come to see and understand it and rally to the political standard of their class, they will drive all capitalist parties of whatever name into the same party, and the class struggle will then be so clearly revealed that the hosts of labor will find their true place in the conflict and strike the united and decisive blow that will destroy slavery and achieve their full and final emancipation.
Ignorance alone stands in the way of socialist success. The capitalist parties understand this and use their resources to prevent the workers from seeing the light.
Intellectual darkness is essential to industrial slavery.
The Republican and Democratic parties are alike capitalist parties — differing only in being committed to different sets of capitalist interests — they have the same principles under varying colors, are equally corrupt and are one in their subservience to capital and their hostility to labor.
November 18, 2008 12:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
"....the torpid workers who are too blind and unthinking to see it..."
Resistance, do you understand that this kind of language represents the other side of the coin of using ordinary people as ideological fodder? On the one hand you see the Republicans with their "Joe the plumber wants..." crap and on the other, you get this progressive-in-name-only nonsense about the torpid unthinking workers.
Good lord, go out and ask some ordinary people whether they enjoy being characterized as blind and torpid. After you recover from the earful you get, you'll probably come to some realizations.
1. Most people are busy with other things, like their work and families. They try to do a reasonable job at them.
2. In return, they expect a government that does a reasonable job of working in their best interest.
3. The government hasn't done a good job of 2.
4. People know that they've been run into the ground and that the Paulson attempt at bailout isn't going to do them any good except to strengthen their opportunities to continue working away while being essentially ignored by their government. This focus on institutuions at the expense of individuals is not working, which is why the bailout isn't working.
5. Most people don't consider themselves socialists, so please don't put socialist rhetoric in their mouths.
November 19, 2008 2:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Erica wrote "Most people don't consider themselves socialists, so please don't put socialist rhetoric in their mouths.
EXACTLY!!!
Ignorance alone stands in the way of socialist success. The capitalist parties understand this and use their resources to prevent the workers from seeing the light.
So the working class presumes that the Capitalist will solve all our problems, Capitalism is Nirvana?
The wage slaves, will stand idly by, as Paulson and Congress tell us how bad Socialism is, all the while making the masses fear the dreaded S word.
All while the CAPITALSTS are looting the treasury, knowing the collapse is coming.
Preaching how taxes are bad, Socialism is bad, bailing out homeowners is bad.
The only thing not bad, is when the Capitalists benefit.
To Hell with the working class, let them eat cake, only if it should fall from the table in the form of crumbs.
It has always been since the days of the Magna Carta, that when the privileged ruling Class is fearful of a replacement form of governance, does the ruling power make concessions
.
So what’s wrong with sending a shot across the bow, that WE THE PEOPLE, are tiring of empty promises.
It is not the responsibility of the slaves, to prove the merits of Capitalism.
If those who love it and want to preserve it, it is their duty to assure it’s continuation as a viable ideology,
Otherwise; when the financial markets crash, I personally have learned it has failed and produced suffering.
Tell me later in your life when you find a world without the SOCIAL Security support, or the SOCIAL program Medicare is gone, while you watch CEO’s , who’ll brag and praise the virtues of Capitalism, flying in their Corporate jets, living abroad.
November 20, 2008 1:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Puff piece articles about Paulson are all part of a revisionism about the financial crisis. There was a Financial Crisis I, caused by sub-prime et al that was well-contained and piddling along even though exacerbated by FAS 157. From the rescue of Bear Stearns in March 2008 through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and including the failure of Northern Rock in England, until the Friday before the Lehman Bros bankruptcy, the Dow Jones average was down 3.8%.
Paulson murdered Lehman Bros. and forced them into bankruptcy because he hated Dick Fuld and wanted to teach him a lesson for not heeding his (Paulson's) instructions to sell Lehman. Simple. Paulson broke the covenant that he had established with Bear and made the United States Government an unreliable, untrustworthy partner.
Financial Crisis II, the global catastrophic crisis that spread virally and metastatically throughout the world began with the Lehman
bankruptcy. Remember the carnage in the week that followed and look at the Dow and S&P down 30% or so since then. Paulson did it single-handedly and no revisionist version is going to absolve him of the responsibility for destroying trillions of dollars of value and spreading panic and fear throughout the world. Out, out damned spot! Can't be done!
November 18, 2008 10:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Lehman filed for bankruptcy on September 15, 2008.
Stocks were volatile over the following week, but the S&P 500 and those firms most affected -- Citigroup for example --closed up for the week (Indeed, Citigroup closed the week 44% above its July low).
Share prices have since fallen substantially; however, no one knows why or whether at their current prices, they represent a reasonable present value of all future dividends.
The most Paulson can be blamed for in the matter of Lehman being "allowed" to fail is that he informed the market that the days of "bubble economics" and the "Greenspan put" are over.
November 19, 2008 7:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
Lehman bankruptcy caused money funds to "break the buck" which led to panic and freeze up of credit markets which is the "why" stock prices have fallen since, which you claim not to understand. He didn't "allow" Lehman to fail, he killed them!
Paulson's stubbornness and actions since are actionable.
November 19, 2008 8:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
The corporate MSM (including, of course, WaPo) is not far from Pravda in its "newspeak" on behalf of the plutocracy.
December 1, 2008 3:55 AM | Reply | Permalink