tagged w/ Zero point Zero...
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From the past: Here is a Bloomberg article from May 1, 2008. Take a look at what Henry Paulson said and then wrap your mind around that he is, as mentioned in the debate last night, "the most powerful member of the cabinet."
Remember also, that he was supposed to be the man given the $700B with no oversight to "fix" the problem.
No one saw this coming? Apparently he didn't, or he is lying...
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Paulson Says U.S. Credit-Market Crisis Is `Closer to the End' - May 2008
May 1 (Bloomberg) -- By Peter Cook and John Brinsley
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said the credit crisis, now in its ninth month, probably is more than half over, and retained his forecast for the U.S. economy to keep growing.
``We are closer to the end of this problem than we are to the beginning,'' Paulson said in a Bloomberg Television interview yesterday in Washington. Even with ``headwinds and despite some of the things that we're going through, this economy is still growing, albeit modestly,'' he said.
Paulson, a former chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., joins the heads of Wall Street firms including JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Lehman Brothers Inc. in viewing the credit turmoil as nearer an end. He also said he's focusing on existing efforts to address the housing slump, playing down a proposal for the department to use government funds.
The Treasury chief said a government report yesterday showing the economy grew 0.6 percent in the first three months of the year hadn't altered his assessment.
The figures on U.S. gross domestic product indicated that only an increase in stockpiles of unsold goods prevented a contraction last quarter.
``There inevitably will be some more bumps in the road before we get through this'' credit turmoil, Paulson said. He conceded that ``we're in a tough quarter right now.''
Read The Rest at Link...From the past: Here is a Bloomberg article from May 1, 2008. Take a look at what Henry... more
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Americans' retirement plans have lost as much as $2 trillion in the past 15 months — about 20 percent of their value — Congress' top budget analyst estimated Tuesday as lawmakers began investigating how turmoil in the financial industry is whittling away workers' nest eggs.
The upheaval that has engulfed financial firms and sent the stock market plummeting is also devastating people's savings, forcing families to hold off on major purchases and even delay retirement, Peter Orszag, the head of the Congressional Budget Office, told the House Education and Labor Committee.
As Congress investigates the causes and effects of the meltdown, the panel pressed economists and other analysts on how the housing, credit and other financial troubles have battered pensions and other retirement funds, which are among the most common forms of savings in the United States.
"Unlike Wall Street executives, America's families don't have a golden parachute to fall back on," said Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., the panel chairman. "It's clear that their retirement security may be one of the greatest casualties of this financial crisis."
More than half the people surveyed in an Associated Press-GfK poll taken Sept. 27-30 said...
Read The Rest at Link...
Americans' retirement plans have lost as much as $2 trillion in the past 15... more
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Not just Wall Street is running scared.
The consequences of the financial meltdown now are sinking in with ordinary Americans, who worry whether their jobs, home values, children's futures and retirement plans are at risk, according to a poll out Wednesday.
Eight in 10 fear the crisis will affect them directly, according to an AP-GfK poll. Yet 45 percent of all adults still opposed the proposed government bailout.
Some 38 percent were in favor of the $700 billion financial-market rescue plan and 16 percent were not sure in the poll, which was conducted Sept. 27-30.
Read the Rest at Link...
Not just Wall Street is running scared.
The consequences of the financial meltdown... more
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At a press conference held mere moments after Monday's defeat of the $250 billion bailout proposal, several top Republicans nominated a scapegoat for the bill's failure: Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Even as Chris Matthews was at pains to note on MSNBC the fact that, while the Democrats had delivered more than half of their caucus in favor of the bailout plan and Republicans could not, several top GOP figures (who fractured over the actual vote) went full-tilt in blaming Pelosi personally.
Read The Rest at Link...
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This link page has the full text of the Pelosi speech as prepared for delivery and some great video of the pressers after the vote...At a press conference held mere moments after Monday's defeat of the $250 billion... more
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Republicans and Democrats talked a lot over the last few days about putting aside their partisan differences for the good of the country to pass a financial markets rescue plan. But they mostly appeared to agree on one thing - that even if they were going to support it, no one much liked the $700 billion bailout bill they had negotiated with the Bush Administration, and certainly no one much wanted to take any credit for it.
So perhaps it shouldn't have come as such a shock when the House of Representatives failed to pass the bill Monday afternoon, or that the rest of the day was spent in partisan fury and recriminations: Democrats blamed Republicans, Republicans blamed the Dems, the House blamed the Senate, the Senate blamed the House, John McCain blamed Barack Obama, Barack Obama blamed - well, you get the picture...
Read The Rest at Link...Republicans and Democrats talked a lot over the last few days about putting aside... more
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A White House spokesman says President Bush is very disappointed in Monday's House vote rejecting the administration's rescue plan for the nation's financial industry.
"There's no question that the country is facing a difficult crisis that needs to be addressed," said spokesman Tony Fratto. He said the president will be meeting with members of his team later in the day "to determine next steps."
Bush is "very disappointed" with the vote, Fratto said.
A White House spokesman says President Bush is very disappointed in Monday's... more
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Stocks plunge 600 points...
The House on Monday defeated a $700 billion emergency rescue package, ignoring urgent pleas from President Bush and bipartisan congressional leaders to quickly bail out the staggering financial industry.
Stocks plummeting on Wall Street even before the 228-205 vote to reject the bill was announced on the House floor.
When the critical vote was tallied, too few members of the House were willing to support the unpopular measure with elections just five weeks away. Ample no votes came from both the Democratic and Republican sides of the aisle...
Read Rest at Link...
Stocks plunge 600 points...
The House on Monday defeated a $700 billion emergency... more
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ABC News' Tahman Bradley and Arnab Datta Report: Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., on Sunday described Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's request for billions of dollars to buy debt from struggling Wall Street financial firms as "un-American" and said the secretary should have stepped down.
Gingrich even expressed concern with Paulson's connections to Wall Street. The treasury secretary served as the chairman of a major global investment banking and securities firm before joining the Bush administration.
"You have the former Chairman of Goldman Sachs asking for 700 billion dollars, and in his initial request, asking for it in such an un-American way that I think he should have resigned... "
ABC News' Tahman Bradley and Arnab Datta Report: Former House Speaker Newt... more
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