Paulson’s Goldmen
Critics of Henry Paulson's effort to put together a financial bailout worry that the Treasury secretary is getting too much of his advice from aides who were his colleagues at Goldman Sachs, where he was the CEO before joining the Bush administration in 2006. Paulson has recruited three former Goldman execs—Ken Wilson, Ed Forst and Dan Jester—in recent weeks to help him create and execute a bailout plan. A fourth, retiree Steven Shafran, is one of Paulson's "senior advisers." Treasury spokeswoman Michele Davis said Wilson and Jester joined Treasury as advisers in August; Forst, who left Goldman this summer to become a senior administrator at Harvard, joined Paulson's crisis squad in September. "This is a time when the American people need all the experts at Treasury that they can get," Davis said, adding that the ex-Goldmen are getting paid "de minimis" as "contractors."
Administration critics expressed concern that Paulson's team is heavy with Wall Street expertise but short on Main Street perspective. A senior commercial banker, who asked for anonymity discussing bailout politics, said that the relationship between the investment business, which will be a major beneficiary of any bailout, and the Treasury team is "very incestuous." A GOP congressional adviser, who also asked for anonymity, said Paulson's Goldman-heavy kitchen cabinet "narrow[s] their window of input." Democrats also have close ties to Goldman. Ex-Treasury secretary Robert Rubin, a top adviser to Barack Obama, was the investment firm's co-chairman until 1993. According to OpenSecrets.org, the Obama campaign has received about $690,000 from Goldman-affiliated donors. The Obama campaign says it "receives advice from a wide range of economic experts."
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Member Comments
Posted By: Krohn @ 10/01/2008 8:57:07 PM
Comment: A man of great wisdom:
http://www.atlah.org/broadcast/manningreport.html
Posted By: Aleksej @ 09/29/2008 9:07:10 PM
Comment: *
SAVE AMERICA
OPEN THE DOORS
AMERICA IS A COUNTRY OF IMMIGRANTS
IMMIGRANTS WILL SAVE AMERICA
GIVE CITIZENSHIP FOR EVERYBODY WHO BUY A HOUSE BY CASH
Posted By: ChrisLPNM @ 09/29/2008 8:40:11 PM
Comment: This is politics at it's worst. Nancy Pelosi had no business making the speach that she made towards the end of the debate. And republican's had no business claiming that it was her speach that caused them to pull their support - people should be bigger than that.
As far as I am concerned, everyone is to blame for this - republicans, democrats, independents. And the American public too. This culture of consume, consume, consume is completely out of control. Yes, I believe there were a few unsophisticated buyers that were snookered by unethical lending practices - but only a small percentage. For the rest, it was simply a question of greed. Why buy a modest 2,000 square foot house when you can leverage yourself to the hilt and buy a 5,000 square foot house?
This is a great big *** sandwich and we are all going to have to take a bite. There is no point in making recriminations or pointing fingers. The vast majority of us had a part to play in this mess. It is time we all held ourselves accountable instead of someone else and focus on fixing it rather than trying to figure out how to gain some advantage from it.
I am so disgusted right now that I want to vote them all out of office. It doesn't matter whether they are a republican or a democrat or an independent. Throw the lever for someone new, because the current crowd has completely, and utterly, failed.