Monday, November 17, 2008

Hank Paulson: Flying, Fickle Finger of Fate Points at YOU

Yes, there was never any doubt. The spinning "Finger (this blog's reincarnation of the old "Laugh In" Flying, Fickle Finger of Fate award for outstanding stupidity/evil in the previous week, represented by a statuette of an INDEX finger pointing) stopped this weekend pointing squarely at Hank Paulson.

It is now conclusively established that Paulson is the worst failure in the history of world finance--a contender for the worst failure in the history of human kind. See the Wednesday/Thursday entries in this bog showing why Paulson gets the Finger this week. And he keeps getting worse (impossible as that is to believe).

Paulson appeared on CNBC on Friday and made a complete fool of himself--again. The man should have been fired Friday. The man should have been fired a week ago. The man should have been fired a month ago. The man should have been fired the moment he proposed a bailout of this own previous firm (Goldman Sachs--the AIG bailout being really a bailout of Goldman Sachs). The man should have been fired when he proposed the Wall Street bailout bill, and when he exposed himslelf as totally clueless by abandoning the entire original "plan" to purchase "toxi" assets--the plan "debated" for 3 weeks in that total farce in Congress (which alone should cause every person who voted for that farce to be defeated in every future election as tottaly incompetent for accepting a single word Paulson said). Paulson should have been fired six months ago, when it was aready obvious he had no clue, as he presided over the entire last two years--the two years when we deteriorated to this position on Paulson's wathc--in the end melting down because of Paulson's panic seemingly generated by the danger to his old firm, Goldman Sachs.

Yes, Friday Paulson went on CNBC and said he did not apologize for abandoning the original "bailout" plan, because the facts had changed--the situation had gotten worste.

Nothing Paulson could have said would have exposed him more clearly for the failure he is, and has been. Remember the panicked Paulson, who ruined this economy by panicking the entire country as he gave a blank check to AIG (a bank check supported by Obama, at the same time he was--and is--saying that we "must not give a blank check"). That blank check has now reached 150 billion dollars, which is more than the entire budget for all but a few countries in the world. That debacle is entirely Paulson's baby, to save Goldman Salchs, and he panicked a country because of it.

Remember that panicked Paulson? He is the person who said that we faced financial Armageddon if we did not adopt his plan of purchasing "toxic" financial assets (such as Goldman Sachs' AIG paper?). How could things possibly get worse than Armageddon, and how could we have survived them getting worse? How could Paulson more plainly admit that his panic was unjustified, and the very thing likely to make things worse. Indeed, as this blog said in foresight (not hindsight), that Paulson panic did make things much worse. But Paulson does not justify his incompetence by now saying that, when he panicked a country (and a world) by saying that only his (now abandoned) plan was going to stop the meltdown that would occur if things got worse. You can't predict Armageddon, as Paulson did, unless your specific "plan" to avoid it is adpopted, and then abandon the "plan". Paulson should simply resign and fall on his sword, if he had any honor, decency or intelligence. He has none. Dan, in a comment to a Paulson entry last week, put it in a nushell (while insulting idiots): "Paulson is an idiot." But are not the people who listened to him, and followed him like lemmings into the sea, idiots as well?

It is becoming obvious to even the idiots at CNBC that no one should listen to Paulson, and that one should ever have listened to that total failure. Now if we, the public, would start holding accountable those who did listen to Paulson, and thereby expose their own incompetence, we would start back the road to public intelligence. Instead, too many seem to accept the idea that failure of one central planning, communist/socialist proposal just means we need to adopt more central planning, communist/socialist proposals, with failures like Paulson in charge.

Award ceremony (Virtual ceremony, as usual, but without any graphics and totally in the imagination, where I suggest you use the mental image of Dick Martin presenting the statuette of the Finger as a visual aid, in your mind's eye, even though Martin and "Laugh In" obviously have no connection with this reincarnation of the award):

Imagine Dick Martin thrusting the statuette of the pointing Finger at the camera and saying: "Hank Paulson, his is for you. You deserve it. Nero, Mussolini, Stalin, and Jimmy Carter (all previous recipients of the Finger): None of them deserved the Finger any more than you deserve it.

Return next week (generally by Monday, although my weekend posting are deliberately becoming more rare), to see where the Finger stops next weekend.

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