His Name is Henry Paulson : Economic Death and Busted Bailouts
Finance, Government, National Government, Politics 2 Comments »Like the space-monkey zombies of Fincher’s “Fight Club” chanting “his name is Robert Paulson”; over the slain symbol of innocence, Congress and The President continue to put trust in the former Goldman Sachs Chief Operating Officer.
The collapse of the mortgage markets in recent months has become synonymous with corporate greed; and possibly criminal misleading of the public, namely by Barney Frank. The collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac can be laid squarely at the feet of Democrats who not only ran the companies into the ground, but they also blocked any regulation that might help matters in committee. This strategy was ingenious in the fact that it allowed the Dems to get the money, cause the problem, and sluff the blame on to Republicans. It also helped that there were Republicans greedy and stupid enough to benefit from the problem before considering the consequences.
However, the fix for the collapse is definitely the baby of Henry Paulson. As the United States Secretary of the Treasury, Paulson is solely responsible for the success or failure to prop up a economy that is weakened, or is it?
In a capitalist system, the market is supposed to be responsible for itself. When investment bankers, and mortgage brokers, and financial institutions make bad deals; they are supposed to feel the responsibility of their choices by either loosing money or going out of business altogether.
Well apparently, Henry Paulson did not get the message and proposed the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. The “bailout” as it became known was supposed to fix the economy and restore goodness and decency to the land. Several billion dollars later, another industry has come to knock of the door of Secretary Paulson.
Now the auto industry wants their safety net too. After all, they weren’t the cause the failing credit markets; it was those evil mortgage and credit folks. So, with hats in hand and private jets in tow, the slow, sluggish, inefficient American car manufacturers cry for help.
Of course, they need to scale back the Autoworkers Union salaries; which to be fair is done by arbitration and would take agreement of the part of Union workers to sacrifice to save their own company. However, there are enough non-Union jobs at the big three to be cut back, and private jets to be sold, and golden parachutes to be cut away, and products to be made cheaper. In the end, the auto companies need to experience a lot more loss and be forced to sink or swim.
The alternative is that first we save the auto-makers, then we save the airlines (again), then we save the steel industry, and on and on and on until there is so many people saved that the tax burden is beyond any ability to pay and the nation careens in full-scale depression.
Don’t worry folks “His name is Henry Paulson….”