Free Republic

The Treasury Department has records of the secret meetings that its President's Working Group on Financial Markets held to discuss the troubled financial markets, after all. That doesn't mean Washington wants us to know what was discussed, or whether Wall Street executives were in the meetings. The working group was founded by President Reagan back in 1989, after the stock market nearly sustained its second big crash in two years. Placed under the Treasury's jurisdiction, it lay dormant for years. It has been nicknamed The Plunge Protection Team because many people -- including me -- believe that in recent years...

February 14, 2008 -- IF you still don't believe me that the US government has an organization called the Plunge Protection Team that intervenes in the stock market, consider this: * A former Federal Reserve official proposed just such a market-rigging operation decades ago. * US Treasury Secretary, Hank Paulson, publicly brags that he has revitalized a group that some - including me - thinks is capable of rigging the market. * Paulson has admitted on TV that he regularly discusses financial trouble spots with "market participants," perhaps even at the Wall Street firm he once headed. * A former...

Bears beware. The New Deal of 2008 is in the works. The US Treasury is about to shower households with rebate cheques to head off a full-blown slump, and save the Bush presidency. On Friday, Mr Bush convened the so-called Plunge Protection Team for its first known meeting in the Oval Office. The black arts unit - officially the President's Working Group on Financial Markets - was created after the 1987 crash. It appears to have powers to support the markets in a crisis with a host of instruments, mostly by through buying futures contracts on the stock indexes (DOW,...