The Mike Anderson Site Blog

Is This The Change We Were Promised?

President-Elect Obama has made the appointment of his Treasury Secretary his top priority.
Here are some of the names in the hat:

- Warren Buffett – very successful financial trader
- Sheila Barr – chairperson of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. (active in trying to stop home foreclosures by banks)
- Timothy Geithner – New York Federal Reserve President.(involved in rescue of Bear Stearns and AIG, involved in failure to save Lehman Bros.)
- Jon Corzine – New Jersey Governor (former Goldman Sachs CEO, former US Senator)
- Robert Rubin – former Treasury Secretary (has stated he is not interested)
- Lawrence Summers – former Treasury Secretary
-Henry Paulson – current Treasury Secretary (has stated he is not interested)
How many big changes do you see in this list?

With looming additional financial crises and the disposition of the $700,000,000,000 bailout with our money – it is no wonder this is a priority. It is also an opportunity. His choice will be an indication of things to come. The World Economic Summit will be held November 14 and 15 makes this appointment even more pressing.

Indications of the future are great. World Conferences are important. But what is interesting to me is the actual mechanism for the bailout.

Tags: Bear Stearns, Deposit Insurance Corporation, Federal Deposit Insurance, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Financial Crises, Financial Trader, Goldman Sachs, Henry Paulson, Home Foreclosures, Jon Corzine, Lawrence Summers, Lehman Bros, Obamas Promised Changes, President Elect, Robert Rubin, Sheila Barr, Timothy Geithner, Treasury Secretary, Warren Buffett, World Conferences, World Economic Summit

Confusion as a tactic becoming more common.

Have you noticed how an authority figure such as scientist, lawyer, banker, doctor or politician, tends to drift into technospeak on most issues these day?   Have you also noticed that often you understand less at the end of the discussion than you did initially?  Do you recognize that this technospeak is often just a tactic to cover up the speaker’s lack of understanding of the issue.  And finally, do you recognize that this technospeak is often a tactic to purposely confuse us to hide the real self-serving purpose of the issue?

This current financial crisis is a classic example of technospeak.   I am obviously using that term loosely as the discussion here is actually economic gooblygook.

Secretary Paulson is begging the government to provide $700 billion, billion with a b of taxpayer dollars.  He wants this money to prop up some financial markets on Wall Street.  Has anyone looked at the Wiki bio on Secretary Paulson.  His career prior to the Treasury Department was Wall Street.  Specifically one of the prime actors in this current crisis.  It is estimated that Secretary Paulson has a net worth of $700 million.  Has anyone asked him how much of that is in Goldman Sachs stock or investments?  I assume because of his past position at Goldman Sachs in 2005 and 2006, that he had a significant stock position.  What is it now?

I do not know the answer, but I suggest that it was liquidated when the stock and stock options were of real value.  Why would he liquidate all of the GS assets?  Perhaps he did it to separate himself from Wall Street influence as required by his new government position.  I wonder why he did not just escrow his assets like most government employees in powerful positions?

I am assuming that Secretary Paulson bailed out of Wall Street.  Perhaps I am incorrect.  I believe that many of the Wall Street tycoons who have seen the stock in their companies plummet somehow sold out before the crashes over the past couple of years.  Somehow they smelled something and bailed.  Senator McCain and others brought legislation to committee to revamp the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac operations in 2005, primarily to institute more oversight and regulation of their operations.  This legislation was buried in committee and never came to a vote.  Please note that both houses were controlled by the Democrats at that time.

OK, what am I getting at.  I complain about transparency and then I am obtuse.  Other posts will deal with types of mortgages, how a mortgages is approved and what happened.

Tags: Confusion, Financial Crisis, Goldman Sachs, Secretary Paulson