How low would you go to grab a pile of loot worth 700 BILLION dollars?
Invade a country based on lies and dodgy intelligence, wasting over a million human beings and ripping that nation to shreds, so that your war profiteering buds could rake off hundreds of billions of blood stained profit?
Done and done.
Put shills and various incompetent types in charge of the SEC and the Commodity Trading Exchange so your buds can loot the till to their heart's content?
Done and done.
Let the Department of Justice ignore the free for all going on at Wall Street, and let your buds get away with trillions of dollars in NON-liquid assets?
Done and done.
Start cratering banks on purpose, all in the effort to scare the American public into filling Wall Street's outstretcehd hand.
Being done.
The former Goldman Sachs CEO even went down on one knee as if genuflecting, to which Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Cal.) is said to have joked, "I didn't know you were Catholic."
According to the article, after Paulson told the Democrats, "Please don't blow this up," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) responded, "We're not the ones trying to blow this up. It's the House Republicans." Paulson then reportedly stated: "I know, I know; it's both sides." A September 26 Politico article, describing the same exchange, reported that "when Democrats left to caucus in the Roosevelt Room" following a meeting with President Bush at the White House, Paulson "pursued them, begging that they not 'blow up' the legislation." But the article did not include Paulson's reported acknowledgement that House Republicans bore some responsibility.
Paulson feared the deal was falling apart, sources told ABC News' George Stephanopoulos.
As Democrats met in the White House's Roosevelt Room after the meeting with [President] Bush, Paulson told them, "Please don't blow this up," according to sources.
Sources say Frank was livid, saying, "Don't say that to us after all we've been through!"
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., reportedly said, "We're not the ones trying to blow this up. It's the House Republicans."
Paulson replied, "I know, I know; it's both sides," according to a Treasury Department spokeswoman.
From the September 26 Politico article:
Talks were to resume at the Capitol on Treasury's $700 billion rescue plan, but a high-profile White House meeting ended Thursday on a sour, contentious note after animated exchanges among lawmakers laced with presidential politics just weeks before the November elections.
The political breakdown came as the collapse of Washington Mutual Inc. -- the largest bank failure in US history -- marked another low point in the financial crisis. And angry Democrats warned that Treasury's whole initiative could collapse unless President Bush gets House Republicans to come to the table.
"Unless this fourth leg shows up at some point, this could fall off very quickly," said Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.).
At the White House, in fact, House Minority Leader John Boehner had bluntly warned about the lack of Republican support for the massive government intervention: "I can't invent votes," Boehner said. But House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) angrily accused the minority of trying to undercut Paulson by crafting a late-breaking alternative proposal -- with the tacit support, Frank said, of Republican presidential candidate John McCain.
Both McCain and his Democratic rival, Sen. Barack Obama, would leave the White House without comment, and the meeting was described as among the wildest in memory. A beleaguered President Bush had to struggle to maintain order and reassert himself. And when Democrats left to caucus in the Roosevelt Room, Paulson pursued them, begging that they not "blow up" the legislation.
The former Goldman Sachs CEO even went down on one knee as if genuflecting, to which Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Cal.) is said to have joked, "I didn't know you were Catholic."
It was McCain who had urged Bush to call the White House meeting but Democrats made sure Obama had a prominent part. And much as they complained later of being blindsided, the whole event turned out to be something of an ambush on their part -- aimed at McCain and House Republicans.
Submitted by Greg Bacon on Fri, 2008-09-26 17:19
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He's no Catholic. His bio says he's a Christian Scientist, born in Palm Beach, Florida, to Marianna Gallaeur and Henry Merritt Paulson, a wholesale jeweler. He was raised in Barrington Hills, Illinois.
I smell crypto.