Rough Times for the Really Smart

[marmar]

from Too Much: A Commentary on Excess and Inequality:



Rough Times
for the Really Smart
If you’re rich, our wealthy would have us believe, you must be smart. And if you’re really rich, then you must be even smarter. Maybe even as smart as Hank Paulson — or any other suddenly suspect top exec.

November 24, 2008

By Sam Pizzigati

This hasn’t been a great fall for the brilliant, bright shining superstars who sit at the top of America’s economic ladder. Their genius suddenly seems suspect. From Wall Street to Silicon Valley to Hedge Fund America, the smart boys are reeling.

Consider, for instance, Hank Paulson, our embattled U.S. secretary of the treasury.

Paulson came to the Treasury Department two years ago from Goldman Sachs, the nation’s most widely acclaimed investment bank. Over his years at Goldman, including eight as CEO, Paulson had amassed a stake in the company worth an estimated “$500 million when he cashed out.”

No one on Wall Street begrudged Paulson a penny of that.

In a “fiercely competitive market for intellectual talent,” Wall Streeters believed, Paulson’s brilliance had helped establish Goldman “as the pre-eminent firm in its class.” Revenues at Goldman, during Paulson’s wildly successful CEO stint, soared from $8.5 to $46 billion, profits from $2.4 billion to $11.6 billion.

This past September, with the U.S. economy starting to sink into crisis, commentators found this track record a welcome source of comfort. The President may be clueless, went the conventional wisdom, but at least the nation had real smarts at the Treasury.

“This former investment banker,” a Newsweek cover story pronounced, “may be the right man at the right time.” .......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.toomuchonline.org/articlenew2008/nov24a.html

[zbdent]

1. oh no ... it's because the Government held a gun to their heads and

made the mortgage industry buy bulk mortgages which included "poor" people's mortgages which they bought houses out of their range ...

:eyes:

[annabanana]

2. Now that he jumps willy-nilly from one tactic to another, seemingly without

anything resembling a strategy... he's not looking so damn smart. (But then this time, it's not HIS money)

Put me on FFW to 1/20, please.