jrtom

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/26793903/the_big_takeover/print

Another opportunity to get royally pissed off and despairing relating to what's been going on with the current financial crisis, its antecedents, and various bailout-related program activities.

*sigh*

Honestly, I don't know if there's anything that I can actually do about this, other than to attempt to light a fire under my senators to at least go add some damned oversight and regulation to the banking business.

Seriously, this whole situation just seems surreal.

Henry Paulson, the current US Treasury Secretary and author of the original bailout plan, used to be chairman/CEO of Goldman Sachs (one of the major money firms that's still around), and is still a major stockholder (estimated holdings: $700M).

It's probably pretty safe to assume that, one way or another, Paulson will be out of a job in about 4 months. Regardless of who wins the election, the incoming president will have their own candidate for that position, and having presided over the worst financial crisis in two generations would make him an enormously unpopular choice to retain, even if his planned bailout happens and seems to work at first (I doubt we'll really know whether it works or not prior to next January).

Nevertheless, with the exception of a couple of editorials (mentioned in that Wikipedia entry, I have heard not one peep from the national media on the subject of whether it's wise to let Paulson, under these circumstances, create (much less administer) such a plan.

Seriously, why is this not being discussed more? All the talk about minimizing golden parachutes is very nice, but if Paulson's actions significantly bolster Goldman Sachs, that could be, in effect, a golden parachute for him to the tune of tens of millions of dollars--either in gains or recovered losses, depending on your perspective.