Treasury Secretary Henry "Hank" Paulson is a Democrat. He produced a Democrat Wall Street bailout bill, as President Bush delegated all authority to Paulson. Most of the big Wall Street guys now appear to be Democrats--which explains a lot about what is going on with this proposed, massive Federal bailout of Wall Street and government takeover of much of our economy.
See my entries (prophetic, as usual) early this week giving the Flying, Fickle Finger of Fate to Paulson, Bernanke, and Obama jointly--Democrats--I would suggest to you--all. They (especially Paulson and Bernanke) got us into this mess, along with he other Democrats in Congress like Christopher Dodd and Barney Frank, and now want to use their failure to ram through a Democrat bailout bill for their buddies on Wall Street (who donated all of that money to Barack Obama, and contributed so many advisors to his campaign like former Fannie Mae CEO's Jim Johnson and Franklin Raines).
Why have Democrats not made much of the conflict of interest of Hank Paulson? Is it because he is a Democrat? Of course it is. Hank Paulson was formerly CEO of Goldman Sachs. This Wall Street bailout plan he has constructed primarily benefits..............(wait for it): Goldman Sachs (the biggest Wall Street firm, although other Wall Street Democrats obviously benefit, and even some Republicans). It is like Dick Cheney advocating a bailout of Halliburton. The screams would still be reverberating. But no one seems to even blink at the conflict of interest with Hank Paulson. At the very least, even apart from any financial interest Paulson may have in Goldman Sachs, Paulson is benefiting his former friends and cronies. That includes mega-billionaire Warren Buffet, who is a big Democrat (like so many other rich people on Wall Street) and who just invested 5 billion dollars in Gold man Sachs. That investment will be helped by a government bailout. John Corzine (by the way), who is now Democratic governor of New Jerseay, was the CEO of Goldman Sachs before Paulson.
The conflict of interest just never quits. Nor do the Democratic connections to this mess. Christopher Dodd, who is the prime mover behind the details of this Wall Street bailout in the Senate, was the influential Democrat who blockedreform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac all of those years, along with Barney Frank in the House. Barney Frank happens to be the prime negotiator for the Democrats in the House. Yet he is the person who made sppeech after speech defending Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, even after accounting scandals surfaced in 2005 (when McCain co-sponsored a bill, blocked by Democrats, to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac). Barney Frank also was a strong proponent, along with most Democrats, of the expansive lending of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac which got us in this mess, with Democrats pushing the idea that all Americans deserved to own a house.
Franaklin Raines is a Democrat member of the Clinton Administration who became CEO of Fannie Mae, and received some 90 million dollars. Barney Frank and Christopher Dodd defended him, even after he basically used the inflated accounting (cause of scandal in 2005, which was the beginning of the housing crisis) of Fannie Mae to enhance his own compensation. Meanwhile, Democratic Senator Christopher Dodd got a sweetheart deal from Countrywide Mortgage, even as Dodd was the ranking Democrat who was supposed to be "oeverseeing" companies like Countrywide. Jim Johnson, who is still an Obama campaign advisor and was named by Obama to be part of the committee searching for the Obama VP nominee, was a former chairman of Fannie Mae, and received another sweetheart loan from Countrywide (causing Obama to remove him from the VP search committee, but not totally from the campaign). Rainses, if you listen to what he said and Obama did not deny at the time, has been a "housing advisor" to Obama.
There is just conflict of interest all over the place here, and Democratic footprints all over this "housing crisis". Even when you talk about the "greed" on Wall Street, you are talking about mainly Democrats. Now these same people are pushing a Communistic bailout for Wall Street, with a Democrat bill that amounts to a complet Federal takeover of our financial system--using an ineffectual and impotent President Bush as the front man and wimpy Republicans in the Senate as the fall guys. It just does not get any worse than this.
Nope. Paulson deserved "the Finger". Democrats are pushing this Wall Street bailout, and it mainly benefits their friends, cronies and political allies. It is no accident that Obama was the second largest recipient of money from employees of Lehman Brothers (the recently failed Wall Street firm), and the second largest recipient of money from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (employees) over the last eight years, with Dodd and Frank being high up on the list. Obama, of course, has only been in the Senate 3 of those 8 years.
There are many old Wall Street people from the Clonton Administration (Robert Rubin, for example) formulating economic policy for the Obama campaign. There are other people in the caampaign who were connected to Fannie Mae and/or Freddie Mac.
It is all incestuous. Conflicts of interest are everywhere. Yet, Democrats insist on trying to label this as a Repubican problem of deregulation. Democrats also keep trying to suggest that the "evil" people on Wall Street are Republicans. They are not. The people being bailed out here, like Warren Buffet and Goldman Sachs leaders, have primarily been Democrats. That Wall Street mayor of New York is really a Democrat, although he switched to Republican to enable himself to run for mayor. Bloomberg is one of the biggest Wall Street guys of all. Billionaire George Soros is a speculator in currency and other financial instruments. I have already done an entry this week about loony left billionaire Mark Cuban, who is heavily heavily involved in investing.
It just goes on and on and on. Democrats are behind most of this, and they are acting to mainly benefit Democrats.
Again, Hank Paulson should be fired (for conflict of interest and incompetence). Ben Bernanke should be asked to resign (for straight incompetence). President Bush is going anyway (be thankful for small favors), but Obama is running for Bush's (the present incarnation of Bush) third
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