Wall Street Socialism Paves Way For Global Government
By Cliff Kincaid
November 15, 2008
Now that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has essentially admitted that his Wall Street bailout plan isn't working, it's worthwhile to examine the fawning media coverage he received when he pressured President Bush and Congress into approving it. "This former investment banker may be the right man at the right time," was one of the headlines over a gushing September 29 Newsweek article by Daniel Gross. Among his attributes, we were told, Paulson was an Eagle Scout.
But as an Eagle Scout myself, I seem to remember that the Boy Scout motto was "Be prepared." Paulson seems not to be prepared for anything.
As Michelle Malkin, who was opposed to the bailout, puts it in her new column: "The man doesn't know what the hell he's doing."
In a separate Newsweek article in the same issue, Fareed Zakaria said, "In Paulson, America is extremely fortunate to have a man of tremendous intelligence, drive and pragmatism, who will engage in 'bold and persistent experimentation' until the job is done." The article was headlined "Big Government to the Rescue."
In retrospect, the phrase "persistent experimentation" apparently means making mistake after mistake and not being held accountable for them.
Making Paulson out to be the boy next door, Newsweek included a series of photos apparently taken from the Paulson family album. There was a photo of Paulson as a "college football star," a photo of the "nature-loving Paulson" holding a hawk, a photo of Paulson on a kayak, and so on.
But there was a bit of hard news in the piece. Paulson, Gross reported, "had always been a Republican―but more a Rockefeller Republican than a DeLay." This is another way of saying that this Wall Street banker and former CEO of Goldman Sachs is a liberal. A better description would be Wall Street socialist. So how did he end up as Bush's Treasury Secretary? He was recruited for the job by White House chief of staff Josh Bolten, who, from 1994 to 1999, was Executive Director for Legal & Government Affairs at Goldman Sachs International in London.
"In many ways, Paulson was the ideal person to deal with this mess," Gross reported at the time. Paulson was "noted for self-discipline, focus on controlling risk and mastery of detail." Now he comes across as a dummy who not only doesn't know what he's doing but isn't willing to step aside so that someone more knowledgeable can take command.
Meanwhile, President George W. Bush seems even more clueless. He gave a Thursday speech to the Manhattan Institute pretending that American-style capitalism still exists. "I'm a market-oriented guy, but not when I'm faced with the prospect of a global meltdown," Bush said. He went on to say, "History has shown that the greater threat to economic prosperity is not too little government involvement in the market, it is too much government involvement in the market."
Does the President realize that he is contradicting himself? Needless to say, none of this inspires confidence. His bizarre comments receive little attention because he is considered a lame duck and Paulson is really running the show.
>> Continued -- Page 1 2 3
| 
