AKA a Lie

Posted by on . 25 comments.

I’ll be waiting for the official spin on this one:

The courtship included an invitation to Mr. Paulson and his wife, Wendy, to lunch at the White House last month with President Hu Jintao of China, and culminated in a weekend meeting with Mr. Bush at the White House residence two Saturdays ago.

Mr. Paulson formally accepted the job the next day, May 21, a fact Mr. Bush hid when asked at a news conference four days later whether he had any indication that Mr. Snow intended to leave soon.

“No, he has not talked to me about resignation,” Mr. Bush replied then, resorting to what the White House acknowledged Tuesday was an artful attempt to keep the move secret.

Beyond the clear lie is the even darker series of events that preceded it. Did Hu hold a right-of-refusal on Paulson? China is basically funding everything we do right now, so obviously they have an interest. Did Hu know that Paulson accepted before the people of this country did?

A bit closer to home, if Paulson was chosen for the stated – yet completely ridiculous – reason of his “credibility with the markets,” why did my portfolio take such a gigantic hit on the day he was nominated? Seriously, I have a strong stomach, but -185 Dow/-45 Nas is not the kind of credibility I’m looking for.

** Update by Sarabeth, 7:30 am May 31 **

And this is why
they told the lie
(from Tony Snow‘s press briefing on May 30):

SNOW: … But again, what you didn’t want to have, I think, is at a period of time when you haven’t finished doing your clearances for the person you want to fill that position, you don’t want to have chaos in the markets. It was…

QUESTION: But he’s already offered it to somebody. He’s got it in hand. I mean, he offered these positions all the time and wait for FBI and background searches that sometimes take a long time. I mean, the Supreme Court nominees take six weeks. But you still announced to the public you’re pick somebody…

SNOW: Well, but you know, again Hank Paulson at that time, you don’t announce somebody who hasn’t been pre-cleared. You haven’t finished the clearance process, you don’t announce it. Period. I mean, it’s just…

QUESTION: But it’s not even announcing him. You could have been direct and said: We’re expecting…

SNOW: Well no — with all due respect, I think there was some concern again about how something like that affects the markets. If you have uncertainty for an extended period of time, which would have been, at that point, four or five days, I think that is something that you’ve got to worry about…

I’m not a lawyer, only a finance Ph.D., but in my professional opinion, deliberately making a false statement with the express intention of having a specific desired effect on the stock market is a clear violation of federal laws that prohibit market manipulation.

There is no legal difference between what George Bush did and what Martha Stewart did. Stewart did it for personal financial gain, Bush did it for personal political gain.

Of course, you can’t indict Bush for what Tony Snow says. But do look for Snow to take back his words very, very soon.

Comments

  1. sarabeth says:
    May 31, 2006 at 5:54 am

    When you say “right of refusal”, you do mean that Hu was vetting Paulson’s appointment, right?

    If so, what a totally outrageous suggestion! I don’t see why you would assume such scurrilous, traitorous, evil nonsense. Just because China pretty much owns our economy is no reason to assume they’re started to get involved in running it. Even if the decline in the value of the dollar is expected to be one of the major issues Paulson will have to manage.

  2. sarabeth says:
    May 31, 2006 at 6:01 am

    why did my portfolio take such a gigantic hit on the day he was nominated? Seriously, I have a strong stomach, but -185 Dow/-45 Nas is not the kind of credibility I’m looking for.

    Just show how well these guys understand the stock market and the economy.

    If they had any idea this is how the market would react, they would have announced it Friday after the market closed, not Tuesday morning just before it opened.

  3. sac says:
    May 31, 2006 at 7:09 am

    Agree about the timing. Always announce this kind of stuff on Friday so the markets get the weekend to digest the news.

    As for Bush’s “lie,” I would say it’s standard procedure for management to keep quiet about personnel shifts until everything is in writing. That’s how it works in business, at least.

  4. matt says:
    May 31, 2006 at 7:21 am

    I would say it’s standard procedure for management to keep quiet about personnel shifts until everything is in writing. That’s how it works in business, at least.

    “Mr. Paulson formally accepted the job the next day”

    sac, seriously. what are we going to do with you. he lied about his communication with snow when he could have just as easily not answered or given his normal non-sequitur. further, your analogy game is almost as bad as jimc’s.

  5. JimC says:
    May 31, 2006 at 7:24 am

    sac, seriously. what are we going to do with you. he lied about his communication with snow when he could have just as easily not answered or given his normal non-sequitur. further, your analogy game is almost as bad as jimc’s.

    Yeah sac, you better back off, you’re encroaching on my turf!!! :-)

  6. sarabeth says:
    May 31, 2006 at 7:25 am

    Everything the Bush regime does seems to be either “business as usual” or “standard procedure” to you these days.

    In case it actually needs to be made clear, there’s a big difference between dodging a question and telling a lie. Trying to keep things quiet is not the same as telling a lie. Do you really not see the difference?

  7. Ken says:
    May 31, 2006 at 7:42 am

    Yes, it was clearly a lie.

    But really – is anyone surprised? Personally, I’m far more concerned about the lies they’ve been telling about surveillance of American citizens, or about the dire need to invade Iraq, or about how we’ll all live in peace and happiness if we just clap three times and say “I do believe in Jesus.”

    Seriously, I wouldn’t let anyone in the White House hold my wallet.

  8. sac says:
    May 31, 2006 at 8:27 am

    Alright, upon further reading, I now agree it was pretty egregious. Thank God I’ve cleared that up.

  9. JimC says:
    May 31, 2006 at 10:39 am

    sac said:
    May 31st, 2006 at 8:27 am
    Alright, upon further reading, I now agree it was pretty egregious. Thank God I’ve cleared that up.

    sac, I hope you are being facetious…

    There is no legal difference between what George Bush did and what Martha Stewart did. Stewart did it for personal financial gain, Bush did it for personal political gain.

    This is ridiculous…now you are charging the administration of attempting to manipulate the stock market???

    C’mon matt, you cannot be serious that you *think* this is the same thing Martha Stewart did? Seriously, what Stewart did was to attempt to keep her personal losses at a minimum by using information about her stock that the rest of the people did not have, a measure of unfair advantage, insider trading, and according to Tony Snow, the admin withheld information that if entered into the news cycle prematurely would fester for no good reason. When it was certain the deal was done, then the information was released and then the market could react to solid final information. Pretty simple really, not illegal, not manipulative.

    This is equivalent of a corporation having a secret product that will affect the stock market. If information were released before it was done, this information may cause several other companies stock to plummet but their own stock to rise, is this illegal then to *not* disclose this information before their own timetable?

  10. matt says:
    May 31, 2006 at 2:33 pm

    C’mon matt, you cannot be serious that you *think* this is the same thing Martha Stewart did?

    i didn’t mention martha stewart, douchebag.

    the bottom line is the president could have done what he usually does, no comment. yet beyond what he lied about, there were stories as late as thursday of last week about how administration sources confirmed that it was going to be don evans.

    this isn’t a corporation. you and sac need to be more careful with comparing disparate things. the media aren’t steelworkers, and the government isn’t a corporation. how fucking stupid are you?

  11. sac says:
    May 31, 2006 at 2:46 pm

    And abortions aren’t capital punishment. I think everyone here has been guilty of a weak if not outright false analogy at one time or another. If you can’t see the similarity in fraternal feelings among collegues, regardless of profession, that’s not my fault. I wasn’t trying to equate the duties of steelworkers with the media, as you seem to be implying. My government/corporation analogy isn’t the best, I admit.

    I agree with probably 95% of the politics espoused on this site. It’s the 5% I don’t agree with that I focus on, because what’s the point of joining in on a circle jerk? However, ANY disagreement is usually met with hostility around here. It’s your blog and you can set the tone, but I’m weary of the unwavering certainty.

  12. JimC says:
    May 31, 2006 at 2:47 pm

    i didn’t mention martha stewart, douchebag.

    Oh, I’m sorry where did this come from then…

    There is no legal difference between what George Bush did and what Martha Stewart did. Stewart did it for personal financial gain, Bush did it for personal political gain.

    this isn’t a corporation. you and sac need to be more careful with comparing disparate things. the media aren’t steelworkers, and the government isn’t a corporation. how fucking stupid are you?

    Please explain to me how not revealing information until it was settled behind the scenes can be interpreted as illegal market manipulation…

  13. matt says:
    May 31, 2006 at 2:50 pm

    Oh, I’m sorry where did this come from then…

    you don’t read very well, do you?

    ** Update by Sarabeth, 7:30 am May 31 **

    Please explain to me how not revealing information until it was settled behind the scenes can be interpreted as illegal market manipulation…

    it was settled. the term was “formally accepted.” past that, they obviously floated a story saying evans had the job. they should get a pass for that?

  14. matt says:
    May 31, 2006 at 2:53 pm

    And abortions aren’t capital punishment.

    still a fine example of the hypocrisy of the “christian” right.

    I think everyone here has been guilty of a weak if not outright false analogy at one time or another.

    some more than others.

    It’s the 5% I don’t agree with that I focus on, because what’s the point of joining in on a circle jerk?

    no arguments there, nullus. it’s the strained reach for the imagined center where an administration has sped through every boundary and norm. they don’t get the benefit of the doubt anymore, not here anyway.

  15. JimC says:
    May 31, 2006 at 2:58 pm

    ** Update by Sarabeth, 7:30 am May 31 **

    Good thing I didn’t see that part, she wouldn’t respond to my comments anyway :-)

    Still stands, your site isn’t it?

    still a fine example of the hypocrisy of the “christian” right.

    Sure it is…from my view it is a glaring example of hypocrisy of the immoral left.

  16. matt says:
    May 31, 2006 at 3:02 pm

    Still stands, your site isn’t it?

    everyone is responsible for what appears under their name. shouldn’t be too hard to figure that out.

    glaring example of hypocrisy of the immoral left.

    how again am i a hypocrite when i believe in the death penalty and abortion rights?

  17. JimC says:
    May 31, 2006 at 3:07 pm

    how again am i a hypocrite when i believe in the death penalty and abortion rights?

    Oh well then, don’t count youself in that group…they know who they are

  18. sarabeth says:
    May 31, 2006 at 5:13 pm

    (insert ritualistic pleading here)

    This is ridiculous…now you are charging the administration of attempting to manipulate the stock market???

    Okay, listen up, twerplet. I will write knowledgably about things that I am knowledgable about. Just because you don’t understand it, doesn’t make it ridiculous. What is ridiculous is you jumping up and down and spouting off on things you seem to know very little about.

    Two things are clear from your stream of comments.

    One, you don’t have any conception that “market manipulation” is a separate concept from “insider trading”. It’s a pretty self-explanatory term. For example, if you publicly release false information with the intention of affecting the market price you are guilty of manipulating the market price.

    Two, despite the previous discussion, you still can’t seem to see the difference between keeping quiet and telling a lie. If Bush had dodged the question, and kept his mouth shut, that would have been perfectly legal. But that’s not what he did. In your corporation analogy, a company can keep its secret product developments secret; but it cannot issue a false press release saying it has no secret product under development.

    Martha Stewart didn’t manipulate the market price at all. She exploited inside information for personal profit, but she did nothing to artificially move the market price up or down. That is insider trading. It’s illegal.

    Tony Snow has said in so many words that Bush lied about John Snow’s declared intention to quit, because telling the truth would have caused the stock market to tank. Bush made a false public statement in order to affect the stock market for political profit. That’s market manipulation. It’s illegal.

    You love to confuse issues. Or maybe the truth is that you are actually that confused. So try to understand this very simple idea: “It wasn’t settled that Paulson would take over from John Snow when Bush told his lie” is totally irrelevant here. Bush’s statement was not about who would take over from Snow, it was about Snow wanting to leave. Even if his successor wasn’t settled, Bush’s statement was still a lie. He’s still guilty of market manipulation.

    Please explain to me how not revealing information until it was settled behind the scenes can be interpreted as illegal market manipulation…

    I can’t, because this is not what I said. I can’t because this is not what happened in this instance. It’s not about “not revealing information until it was settled behind the scenes”. It’s about “releasing false information to conceal the truth of what had already happened”.

    To come back to your statement that I opened with. I’m not charging the administration with anything. I’m just pointing out what Tony Snow has charged the administration with.

  19. sarabeth says:
    May 31, 2006 at 5:27 pm

    However, ANY disagreement is usually met with hostility around here.

    That’s not true, unless you consider it hostility if you are challenged about what you say. No one has called you names. No one has told you to go suck the dick of a duck. That might be hostility.

    You are always welcome to challenge me on anything I write. I don’t regard that as hostility.

    If I think you are making a weak or specious argument, I will challenge you back. If you can’t deal with that, you should probably not make weak or specious arguments.

    It has sometimes appeared that you may have said something without fully thinking it through, and when you are challenged, you stubbornly keep defending it with weak and irrelevant arguments, long past the point when you should probably have backed off.

  20. JimC says:
    May 31, 2006 at 8:48 pm

    It has sometimes appeared that you may have said something without fully thinking it through, and when you are challenged, you stubbornly keep defending it with weak and irrelevant arguments, long past the point when you should probably have backed off.

    Have you ever lost an argument or yielded to an opposing view on here?

  21. matt says:
    May 31, 2006 at 9:04 pm

    Have you ever lost an argument or yielded to an opposing view on here?

    have you? yielded i mean. we already know all the arguments you’ve lost.

  22. JimC says:
    May 31, 2006 at 10:19 pm

    we already know all the arguments you’ve lost

    The only arguments I’ve lost are the ones you deleted…

  23. matt says:
    May 31, 2006 at 10:21 pm

    where you argued that you could do what you want here and i reminded you who owned this site?

    your perfect record here is truly amazing.

  24. JimC says:
    June 1, 2006 at 8:41 am

    matt said:
    May 31st, 2006 at 10:21 pm
    where you argued that you could do what you want here and i reminded you who owned this site?

    your perfect record here is truly amazing.

    Let’s not characterize like I was abusing you. You call me some foul name and I returned with something not even close to being equivalent, for example, say you called me oh, a douchebag, then I simply in return call you some name other than matt, and you delete my comment. Granted, you are correct, this is your site, and I am fully aware of this but I think it should be known that I was not calling you any abusive names, degrading you, or anything else to that nature,….just for the record, I don’t want people to think I was cussing you out or purposefulyl verbally abusing you….

  25. matt says:
    June 1, 2006 at 8:47 am

    for the record: jimc did not swear at me. distort my words, call me immoral and unamerican, abuse straw men, advance arguments long discredited, and engage in false analogy, yes. but that jimc don’t curse.