US Treasury Secretary Paulson Does not Inspire Any Confidence

[SuperTrouper]

His presentation is mediocre, rambling, pressure speech, at times flight of ideas. he seems rattled and like he does not want to be there. You can see that he is about to lose it.

[aquamarina]

1. Seriously, he's like a bald Ent.

[Eric J in MN]

5. What is Ent?

NT

[spanone]

2. a real president would have fired his sorry ass by now

[high density]

3. He's Brownie #2

Obviously this is not a good position for him to be in.

[Eric J in MN]

4. When Henry Paulson was CEO of Goldman Sachs...

...he testified to Congress that leverage rules should be changed to allow greater risk.

In 2004, the SEC chair appointed by Bush did change the leverage rules for greater risk.

Lehman Brothers went bankrupt, Henry Paulson let it fail, and the commercial paper market temporarily froze as a result.

Then Paulson declared that temporary freeze to be a crisis, and he demanded Congress give him $700 billion to fix the supposed crisis.

[whosinpower]

6. He is done for

And will not serve the new administration. That much was clear at the debate last night. Just going through the motions and counting down the days - much like the rest of the globe.

[anigbrowl]

7. Dow Jones dropped about 300 points in response. Smooth move, Hank.

OK, individual market drops are probably not directly his fault, but the coincidence is inescapable.

[SuperTrouper]

8. The DOW is tanking again...