Posted on 07/17/2009 5:12:13 AM PDT by Liz
.......almost every lawmaker blasted Former Treasury Secy Hank Paulson's $700B bailout as a deception and ultimate bait-and-switch ruse. "It was masterful deceit," said Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), hammering Paulson for his initial pleas to Congress a year ago to buy toxic assets.....that went to prop up banks and financial firms......Paulson's payoff to his Wall Street "pals," said one lawmaker. "You misled Congress," said Rep Stephen Lynch (D-Mass). Paulson, he said, concealed his ultimate motive....to give $700B to his pals.'" "You asked us, and not very tactfully, for a blank check," said Rep Mark Souder (R-Ind). ".......if we had known you were going to use the money for something else, we would never have approved it." Paulson denied making a misleading switch, "I had to change gears -- the financial system was collapsing all around us." " I don't think anyone's buying what you're saying," said Rep Dan Burton (R-Ind.). Rep Edolphus Towns (D-NY) said, "When you turn over complete authority to the Treasury Department or the Fed, with no accountability and no checks and balances, you get seemingly arbitrary decision-making and residual suspicion."
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
ITEM---Documents Reveal How then-Secy Paulson Forced Banks To Take TARP Cash
The business insider | 5/14/09
FR Posted 05/14/2009 by FromLori
Remember the infamous meeting when then-Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson had the heads of 9 major banks come down to Washington? It was then that he made them the offer they couldn't refuse. Take TARP cash, or else! Now Judicial Watch -- the conservative watchdog organization which was famous for giving the Clinton administration fits -- has uncovered secret documents from that meeting via the FOIA. A few of them are really quite stunning. The first 1-pager is Paulson's talking points for the bank. It basically confirms that he put a gun to all their heads. It says they must agree to take their cash, and that if they protested, then each bank's regulator would force them to take it anyway. The next document is perhaps even more mindblowing. It's the one-page agreement whereby each CEO agreed to let the government make its preferred stock injeciton. As you can see, both the amounts of the injection and the name of the bank are just handwritten scrawl. Treasury Participation Commitment (Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
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ITEM---Paulson threatened US Senators with Martial Law if they did not vote him the bailout billions. Paulson demanded the TARP be exempt from judicial, legislative, and regulatory review. $350B disappeared without a trace---and NO significant effect on the economy. US Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Oklahoma) said that Congress was not told the truth about the $700 billion TARP bailout. "The American people don't know how much money Treasury Secy Henry Paulson has given away to anyone. IT COULD BE TO HIS FRIENDS. We don't know. There is no way of knowing.''
Paulson stationed Neel Kaskari (his right-hand man at Goldman Sachs) to (gag) oversee $350B TARP payouts. We still do not know in which G/S rathole these two secreted the $350B.
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UPDATE Times UK | 7/12/09
Goldman Sachs bankers defy gloom with bonus bonanza Dozens of bankers at Goldman Sachs, London, could be in line for million-pound bonus payouts following another bumper quarter of profits at the giant investment bank. >>>>>>>Goldman is expected to reveal second-quarter profits of $2 billion (£1.2 billion) on Tuesday, after raking in fees from share and bond issues around the world. The bank leads an elite group of large financial institutions making huge profits from the disruption in the markets. They are all expected to make large bonus payments to some staff this year. >>>>>>> The payouts come in spite of the enormous losses racked up by the banking sector, which have led to taxpayers around the world stumping up huge sums of money to keep the financial system alive. END
What are they gonna do about it? Paulson’s the ulimtae made man.
Remember how house republicans were hanged by the MSM and Bush/Pelosi for opposing this?
And if they had thought about it for more than 30 seconds, they may have figured it out.
Rush, rush, rush, right over the cliff.
I still can’t believe that Bush allowed (and approved) all this crap to happen right under his nose.
btw, the whole point of the bailout was to serve one purpose - protect Goldman Sachs.
A panel of kettles calling out a pot.
“Masterful deceit”? Who actually bought the garbage he was selling? Nobody I know. When it comes to spending other people’s money, though, our lofty Representatives have different standards.
Whiny politicians saying “You tricked us!”
It is their job to scrutinize such things.
Unbelievable.
Gotta hand it to the ruling Oligarchy, they have no conscience when it comes to gouging the citizenry.
I do find it quite humorous when Adolphus Towns, democrat, rips Paulson for operating behind closed doors with no checks and balances.
I wonder where else this is going on? *scratches head*
Bingo!
Allowed? Heck, he pushed for it, he wanted it too.
Snicker
The fact that people are finally waking up to this idea is what's unbelievable.
anyone know where paulson kept his $1billion wealth? In Cash form at goldman sach?
I remember that a three page outline turned into a thousand page bill when it went to congress. Perhaps the genius staffers could have used words like “only, specifically, definite” in their crafting of the bill. But that is assuming that the bill didn’t do what it was supposed to do.
Amen!
The elites from both Parties were in on this one!
That is why the GOP Senate went along with it as well.
I frankly, don't want to hear anymore about how 'great' Bush was, he sold us out after losing the open border issue, which was his pet project.
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