Is it safe to trust a Wall Street veteran with a Wall Street bailout?

[maddezmom]

Is it safe to trust a Wall Street veteran with a Wall Street bailout?

By KEVIN G. HALL
McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON -- Making the rounds on the Sunday morning talk shows, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson repeatedly said today's financial problems were long in the making. He should know. He was part of the Gold Rush that has brought the global financial system to the brink of collapse.

Paulson presided over one of the most profitable runs on Wall Street as chairman and chief executive officer of investment banking titan Goldman Sachs & Co. from 1999 until President Bush nominated him on May 30, 2006 to take over the Treasury Department.

Back then, Bush saw Paulson's Wall Street experience as a plus. "Hank will follow in the footsteps of Alexander Hamilton and other distinguished Treasury secretaries who used their talents and wisdom to strengthen our financial markets and expand the reach of the American Dream," Bush said at the time.

But with Paulson now seeking virtually unfettered authority to administer the largest bailout of the financial industry in U.S. history, many are wondering whether Paulson also doesn't come with enormous potential conflicts of interest.

That was one reason Democrats on Sunday expressed reluctance to approve the administration's draft legislation that would leave to Paulson virtually all authority over the proposed $700 billion bailout. The legislation would allow him to decide which securities to buy, from whom to buy them, and which outside companies and people to hire to help him do so.

more:http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics/AP/story/695796.html

[Rabrrrrrr]

1. The Bush strategy on appointing henhouse watchers: appoint the fox,

or appoint someone who doesn't fucking care what happens to the chickens.

That's been basically every appointment he's ever made - either someone so tied up on the inside that they can't be trusted; or, like the EPA, for instance, appoint someone who thinks the organizing they're heading up is a piece of crap, unnecessary, and frivolous.

[jimshoes]

2. Kinda like loaning a junkie some money

without even requesting he get some rehab.