Katrina vanden Heuvel: Who's Watching the Fox at Treasury?

[marmar]

from The Nation:



Who's Watching the Fox at Treasury?
posted by Katrina vanden Heuvel on 10/06/2008 @ 6:19pm



Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is expected to name fellow Goldman Sachs alum, Neel Kashkari, to oversee the government's $700 billion Superfund cleanup of Wall Street's toxic assets. The Wall Street Journal reports, "Paulson likes to surround himself with people he's comfortable with: people, mostly, from Goldman Sachs." And why not? Making personnel decisions based on maximizing one's comfort level has worked wonders for the Bush administration thus far.

According to Bloomberg News, the Treasury will hire "about two dozen staff" and "five to 10 asset management firms" to determine which securities to purchase and how to manage them. Rest assured, the Treasury is working on a "firewall" to prevent any conflicts of interest between the people it hires and the firms they previously worked for.

Well, I'm sold, aren't you? Breeds all kinds of confidence for the taxpayer-turned-investor in the Paulson Plan.

As the Bush administration outsources management of the bailout bonanza, how many more Goldman Sachs alums will fill these critical posts? And with the fox guarding the henhouse--who's watching the fox?

Here's a modest proposal for Secretary Paulson: instead of carrying out this program of Goldman Sachs socialism, take a look at the most recent jobs report: in September, 159,000 jobs were lost. Approximately 769,000 people have lost jobs since January. .......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thenation.com/blogs/edcut/369173

[chill_wind]

1. Two guys from Wall Street in charge of the Wall Street bailout loot.

"I pledge allegiance to the United States of Goldman Sachs."

And the band played on...