Posted on 11/14/2008 2:02:25 AM PST by KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle
My syndicated column this week rips Hapless Hank Paulson and his flock of sheeple in Washington. The latest headlines suggest that the auto bailout is in trouble. But don’t get your hopes up too high. Politicians will cave. And no matter what euphemism they use, you will pay for it.
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Hank Paulson, naked emperor
by Michelle Malkin
Copyright 2008
Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson finally confirmed what lonely bailout opponents tried to tell the American public all along: The man doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing.
Paulson held a bazooka to taxpayers’ heads. He groveled on his knees in front of Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. He lured leaders from both political parties into linking arms in a panicked Chicken Little line dance for the beleaguered mortgage industry. Paulson demanded an unprecedented $700 billion troubled assets relief program for the good of the country. For the health of the housing market. For the survival of the economy. No time for deliberation. No time to review the failures of such interventionist approaches around the world. Now, now, now!
And now? The pulled-out-of-the-posterior “$700 billion” price tag has ballooned into the trillions. The “mortgage industry rescue” has expanded to banks, insurance companies, automakers, credit card companies, and possibly the entire national volume of consumer lending. Oh, and that vaunted “TARP” component, Paulson admitted this week, is nothing but a four-letter-word that rhymes with TRAP.
In September, Paulson offered his lofty pledge: “The ultimate taxpayer protection will be the stability this troubled asset relief program provides to our financial system, even as it will involve a significant investment of taxpayer dollars. I am convinced that this bold approach will cost American families far less than the alternative - a continuing series of financial institution failures and frozen credit markets unable to fund economic expansion.” Two months later, Paulson’s conviction melted faster than microwaved butter. “Our assessment at this time is that this is not the most effective way to use TARP funds,” he sheepishly told the nation Wednesday.
Hey, who died and put Emily “Never mind” Litella in charge of the economy?
Paulson explained at his non-mea culpa press conference that he knew when the bailout was signed that it wasn’t going to work as sold: “It was clear to me by the time the bill was signed on October 3rd that we needed to act quickly and forcefully, and that purchasing troubled assets—our initial focus—would take time to implement and would not be sufficient given the severity of the problem.”
Now he tells us? Would have been nice if he had made this clear — quickly, forcefully, and publicly — to the Beltway stooges who were pulling the TARP over our eyes. So much for Paulson’s earnest transparency commitments on the Hill.
Members of Congress who let themselves be bullied into switching their votes on the bailout should be experiencing the biggest case of buyers’ remorse in U.S. history. They fell for what Nobel Prize-winning economist F.A. Hayek called “the fatal conceit” — the disastrous idea that a federal bureaucrat has the knowledge to do a better job than the private market in organizing and directing an economy. They gave unchecked power to a single government official without a clue. Wielding his enormous authority, Paulson is desperately throwing our money at banks in a futile attempt to convince them to lend. Instead, those banks are either hoarding the cash or acquiring more assets. In other words: Paulson is helping the banks that were “too big to fail” grow even bigger with taxpayer backing. Swell.
The White House says: “We’ll just trust our treasury secretary to implement the program.” President Bush insists “government’s role will be limited and temporary.” Meanwhile, Democrat Rep. Barney Frank is shrugging off the lack of bailout disclosure by both the Federal Reserve and Treasury. But as I reminded readers before this latest bait-and-switch admission, Hank Paulson is not to be trusted. I repeat:
This is the man who proclaimed the subprime crisis “largely contained” in April 2007; “near the bottom” in May 2007; and “largely contained” again in August 2007. This is the man who pledged that he had “no interest in bailing out lenders or property speculators” in October 2007 and couldn’t “think of any situation where the backdrop of the global economy was as healthy as it is today.” This is the man who patted himself on the back for refusing to “put taxpayer money on the line” to rescue Lehman Brothers on Sept. 15 – and then turned around the next day and engineered the $85 billion taxpayer-funded bailout of AIG. This is the man who vowed he had “no plans to insert money” into Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac –and then turned around and committed $200 billion in capital and credit lines to those corrupt, bloated, crumbling institutions. This is the man who declared “the worst is likely to be behind us” in May 2008.
Emperor Paulson’s bipartisan courtiers in Congress berated anyone who dared challenge his wisdom. Minority Leader John Boehner sniffed: “This is no time for ideological purity.” Well, ideological pollution begat this mess. It’s time for a fiscal conservative counterinsurgency to disrobe and disarm the charlatans before they do more harm.
No truer words have ever been spoken.
Just start following this woman around, 24/7. Evidently, she's soon to be absolutely rolling in the stuff. ;)
Indeed, though methinks Peggy is about to find out that where the False Messiah is concerned, when you lay down with pigs, you get covered in pig$hit.
PING!
The majority of Americans do not know what the .ell he is doing. This is not a stupid man, he knows full well what he is doing.
Stupid Democrat Congress passes more legislation they do not understand, reminds me of Clinton(Hillary) behind a podium claiming she didn’t anything about Iraq, just voted for the war on the Presidents word. Must be no time to study issues, just pass the bill, get ‘er done!!!
Game, set, match.
John Paulson’s testimony (the hedge fund Paulson) before Congress yesterday was awesome. Part of our bailout is investing in banks at a 5% yield and 15% stock conversion payback. Meanwhile private sector investments in our own country are getting a 10% yield and 100% payback. In Europe, governments are getting 12% and requiring banks to cease dividends and eliminate bonuses, not to punish but to build up equity so they can lend. Seems our government is intent on giving away our money while others are protecting taxpayer and private investor interests.
“While the shift of the TARP program from asset purchases to equity injections is a move in the right direction, the terms of TARP equity injections are overly generous to recipients and result in an indirect transfer of wealth from taxpayers to financial firms.”
http://media.ft.com/cms/a1d35562-b192-11dd-b97a-0000779fd18c.pdf
“hank paulson; naked emporer”
mr. p. knows exactly what he’s doing. (is he not in control of 750 billion printing press dollars, not subject to oversight from anyone and is he not a heavy duty greenie?)
absolutely scary times.
IMHO
He knows what he’s doing.
Shakespeare wrote about him in Othello. His character was named Iago.
Oh, yet more incompetence from this administration? I’m sorry, but I can’t seem to muster any more surprise.
She jumped off the deep end.....way over her head.
Her fame has gone to her head
His body language at his presser the other day said something completely different. He is nervous as a cat and it showed big time. This is not the sign of a man who knows full well what he is doing. I saw absolutely nothing that showed the slightest signs of confidence.....
I like what one of the governors said on Fox News yesterday: Only Republican governors (well, maybe not Schwarzenegger) know how to be fiscal conservatives and live within their means, cutting spending and producing jobs. Republicans in Washington are a different breed and they don’t have a clue. (This is not verbatim, but my synopsis of it.) hos true. Hopefully, they’ll lead bu example and we can still have a future in America.
In case no one else has notices, every thing Paulson has done has been to shovel money at his banking buddies.
Why NOT buy mortgage securities ? Because they are worth maybe .08 on the dollar and all banks would immediately be grossly insolvent, right out where every one could see them, triggering massive CDS events.
Why create the TARP ? To prop up failing banks, not to restart lending. Ask yourself - who are they going to lend to who has a prayer of paying it back ? The consumer into rising unemployment, the companies whose earnings are ALL horrendous ?
No, Paulson’s plan is very consistent - make sure the banks survive, no matter what.
Paulson is just running down the clock, hoping and praying this bailout monster he’s created doesn’t go completely beserk on him before his term is up. You can see it in his eyes.
Even so, whenever I hear Paulson talk, I can’t help but think of Public Defender John Gibbons, played by Austin Pendleton in “My Cousin Vinny”, during his first cross examination in court.
It’s that painful. (And I apologize to those who are afflicted with severe stuttering, but it is painful.)
Michelle’s cussin’ mad!
F’ing idoits in D.C. Pure f’inking idoits.
Excuse me, there’s protocol here when there’s a Michelle Malkin article. Where’s her picture?
(I prefer my Sig P225, personally)
After the election I would also add 50+% of the country to your list. Talking to my techs, the bail out had a big effect on those that voted on something other than skin color. Bush’s bailout plan with the democrats cost us a lot of votes. They did a good job of hiding their involvement.
I did not see his presser. Given that since this man got his jackpot off the US tax payers and has since changed his mind in how he plans to spend his $700 + billions, that would make anyone a bit nervous in how to explain what he has in mind. I would say more than likely he is hedging for helping out his betting friends.
I fear for our dear country.
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