Henry Paulson is the highly respected Secretary of the Treasury. He has outstanding credentials for the job. He was the CEO of Goldman Sachs before taking his job as Secretary. In fact he spent his entire working career at Goldman Sachs. His wealth is estimated, according to Wikipedia, to be over $700 million.
So here is the problem. Many of his friends have got to be some of the most influential people on Wall Street. Do you suppose he might be concerned with saving those friends and their businesses? The markets are collapsing and those Wall Street companies are in serious trouble. Perhaps he is just protecting those friends.
Am I overly suspicious? Just read the proposal by Mr. Paulson. I especially like (fascinated with) Section 8. “Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.”
The Sunday morning talk shows provided no insight into Mr. Paulson’s thinking. Thanks to my DVR I saw the interviews on This Week, Face the Nation and Meet The Press. No one thoroughly questioned Mr. Paulson. The late Tim Russert would have conducted the kind of cross examination that this situation calls for. At the very least Tom Brokaw should have asked Chris Dodd what Mr. Paulson had said that “drew the breath out of the room.” The hosts just accepted Mr. Paulson’s words without question. How disappointing. NBC needs to find a replacement for Tom Brokaw.
The Newsweek cover story calls Mr. Paulson “The Captain of the Street.” It’s an article written by Daniel Gross who usually writes an insightful column. The lack of specifics for the general public makes me very skeptical.
I was happy to find this article on the Time Magazine web site.
Mr. Paulson may be correct in his evaluation. If he is correct, his proposal is just a starting point. This situation is not a political issue. America needs to protect itself from a recurrence these sorts of situations in the future.
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