The real price of Goldman’s giganto-profits — Taibblog (7/16/09):
Last year, when Hank Paulson told us all that the planet would explode if we didn’t fork over a gazillion dollars to Wall Street immediately, the entire rationale not only for TARP but for the whole galaxy of lesser-known state crutches and safety nets quietly ushered in [...]
(1) Doubly Screwed
Let it never be said that Geithner is not a true disciple of Hank Paulson.
Paulson screwed us on the way in, when we bought all those lovely securities in troubled banks for way more than they were worth then:
The Treasury secretary has made 174 purchases of banks’ preferred shares that include certificates to [...]
Paulson’s Next Stop: Johns Hopkins Washington Post (1/16/09):
Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. said yesterday that he has decided to take a position at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies after he leaves the Treasury Department.
His exact title has yet to be worked out, said a spokeswoman for the school in downtown Washington.
In [...]
The TARP Congressional Oversight Panel has released a report which puts a number for the first time on how many billions of our money Hank Paulson managed to lose right up front when he pumped capital into mismanaged banks.
By way of background, recall this Bloomberg article from four weeks ago:
Henry Paulson [...]
Bloomberg has a scathing article by Mark Pittman about the terms under which Hank Paulson invested taxpayer money in banks under TARP. I have a hard time seeing how this doesn’t amount to criminal misconduct, how this doesn’t make Paulson a bigger crook than Bernie Madoff:
Henry Paulson may be the most powerful manager of [...]
Chrysler and Ford have finance companies too. Does anyone know why they haven’t dashed into a phone booth and emerged as a bank, to join the Treasury Soup Kitchen line?
It was a simple two-step. GM first successfully converted GMAC into a bank holding company (a process which just involves knocking at the [...]
On Friday, Hank Paulson decided he needs to ask for the second half of the $700 billion that Congress enthusiastically allocated to bail out the financial sector (with practically no strings attached, almost no questions asked, and no meaningful oversight).
Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. said yesterday that Congress must release the second half of [...]
Now that Hank “St. Bernard” Paulson has rescued Citicorp from a fate worse than death, speculation has inevitably revived about how come Lehman Brothers was allowed to fail. A CNNMoney blog points out:
Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson was asked this very question in a Q&A that ran in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, and he replied, [...]
Treasury’s Paulson say no plans to further tap TARP funds – Reuters (11/18/08):
The U.S. financial system is stabilizing and the government does not plan to tap the remaining $410 billion of a financial rescue fund unless a further need arises, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson told the Wall Street Journal in an interview published on Tuesday.
Paulson [...]
I think the most troubling component to the absolute disaster that is Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson is that the lag between his statements and his being proven spectacularly wrong is accelerating towards zero. This interview is from one week ago:
Robert Siegel (NPR): You said yesterday, overall, we’re in a better position than we were. [...]
