Nancy Pelosi

Hank Paulson Takes Your Questions

By Jay Newton-Small | @JNSmall | January 30, 2010 | +

Every want to ask the former Treasury secretary what he actually said to Nancy Pelosi when he got down on his knees in front of her at the White House days before TARP passed? Or find out why he let Lehman fail while bailing out Bear Sterns and AIG? And how much did he really protect his alma mater, Goldman Sachs? Find out here by submitting your questions.

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Related Topics: Economy, henry paulson, questions, tarp, Economy, Nancy Pelosi

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  • afguy

    Yeah, I got a question for Hank-ie…
    .
    What made you think it was a good idea for you to be given total control of 1T in bailout money at the start of the program with NO oversight and no need to report what you were doing with it?
    .
    Isn’t that what you asked for originally?

  • afguy

    Oh, and one more…
    .
    On what date did you stop being an insufferable, arrogant a$$ and submit your resignation from the MOTU Insiders’ Club?
    .
    Or has that date not arrived at this point?

  • apr2563

    http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/16/8-questions-for-hank-paulson/
    All good questions, asked, never fully answered.

    My questions, did he never feel a conflict of interest as a former CEO of Goldman Sachs?
    If he does not support strict oversight and regulation of banks and Wall Street trading, does he hope to increase the domination of an oligarchy in this country?

  • Cliff

    I’m going to guess that the ability to funnel billions of money to Goldman Sachs with no oversight was what made him think it was a good idea.

  • Cliff

    JNS, how do they chose what questions are given to Paulson?
    .
    Are we going to look at TIME a week from now and see that Paulson only chose to talk about his favorite football teams and how great capitalism is?

  • afguy

    Are we going to look at TIME a week from now and see that Paulson only chose to talk about his favorite football teams and how great capitalism is?
    .
    Cliff,
    .
    Probably. After all, MOTU’s are able to warp space, bend time, alter reality, and name their own rules.

  • Cliff

    Well, that’s why I ask. Will Paulson get to pick from the list? Or will TIME pick out the least offensive questions?
    .
    Or will Paulson slip them a Benjamin and get to pick, while they pretend that it’s their choice?
    .
    Or (and this is the least likely) will they actually give him a few challenging questions?

  • destor23

    You could have fully paid off every subprime mortgage in the US for $1.3 trillion. If you’d just paid off one year of every American’s mortgage (and one year of everyone else’s rent just to be fair) you’d have ended the crisis by turning all loans into performing loans and helping main street instead of Wall Street. Why was that not even considered?

  • 53_3

    I think I have several good questions:
    .
    1. How much money, overall, was distributed from the Treasury to forestall the collapse of the financial sector in 2008?
    .
    2. What oversight existed for the management of this money?
    .
    3. In what form was it distributed?
    .
    4. How were the distributions funded?

  • 53_3

    JNS:
    .
    Um, correction please, in the blog title. “…You Questions…”?!?!

  • http://www.ghostnote.com Cookie Puss

    Dear Hank: Can you spot me about $10K? Then I figure we’ll be square.

  • apr2563

    Good question.

  • kevin

    Hey, wise guy! You shut-a you mouth!

  • mikew67

    Financial reforms are long overdue. And the mega-banks had to be stabilized, they are too interconnected in the financial system we are all dependent on. After they are well, they should be broken up into smaller pieces so this cannot happen again — saw a cool site; Balkingpoints ; incredible satellite view of earth

  • stuartzechman

    This is fantastic, Jay Newton-Small, thank you for posting this here.
    .
    I’ve posted my question there, so I’ll repost it here, in case anyone is interested:
    .
    Secretary Paulson:
    .
    How would you respond to criticisms of the Obama Administration’s handling of the financial industry’s recent troubles?
    .
    In a New York Times opinion piece entitled “Obama’s Ersatz Capitalism,” Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz writes ( link to the full piece in the Times) :

    Treasury hopes to get us out of the mess by replicating the flawed system that the private sector used to bring the world crashing down, with a proposal marked by overleveraging in the public sector, excessive complexity, poor incentives and a lack of transparency.
    .
    The main problem is not a lack of liquidity. If it were, then a far simpler program would work: just provide the funds without loan guarantees. The real issue is that the banks made bad loans in a bubble and were highly leveraged. They have lost their capital, and this capital has to be replaced.
    .
    What the Obama administration is doing is far worse than nationalization: it is ersatz capitalism, the privatizing of gains and the socializing of losses. It is a “partnership” in which one partner robs the other. And such partnerships — with the private sector in control — have perverse incentives, worse even than the ones that got us into the mess.

    Do you share this opinion, or do you believe that the Obama Administration has replaced enough of the post-Gramm-Leach-Bliley financial system with incentives and institutions that operate with reduced needless complexity, far greater transparency, and with enhanced potential for stability in capital markets than the one that you confronted in 2008?
    .
    Thanks so much for considering this question, Secretary Paulson, I very much look forward to your answer.

  • nflfoghorn

    It’s BEAR Stearns, but maybe he’s a closet Packers fan.

  • grape_crush

    Welcome back, Jay?

  • the committee

    Hank Paulson? THE Hank Paulson?? This is amazing. OK, I’ll shoot:
    .
    Mr. Paulson, you once saved global capitalism, and arguably prevented near-instantaneous world-wide poverty, with a plan of a mere 849 words, 21 of which were used to define the United States. Do you consider yourself a genius?
    .
    A related question: how many words do you think it would take to save the legacy of George W. Bush?

  • http://theblindspotsofgod.wordpress.com lawyermommy

    “Nancy Mama, Help me, please help me.”??
    ______
    Hmmm Also, I simply cannot think of anything he or anyone else could have said to explain his rather emm odd decision to allow Lehman sink and salvage AIG etc.

    His response should be “das Tüpfelchen auf dem i”
    LOL :)

    LM

    http://theblindspotsofgod.wordpress.com/2010/01/15/technology-savvy-nigerian-criminals-are-the-greatest-threat-to-national-security/

  • diecash1

    “Mr. Paulson, you once saved global capitalism, and arguably prevented near-instantaneous world-wide poverty, “
    ..
    I don’t think it really counts for much if you were to drive your car over a cliff and subsequently pull the other passengers out of the wreckage before it explodes……..which is essentially what Paulson and his cronies did,.

  • jcapan

    I’d ask if his very real and significant commitment to environmental causes is in any way an attempt to ease his conscience about the horribly destructive economic policies he’s advocated throughout his career.

  • apr2563

    How does our country survive without a vibrant middle class? Since the 80s, middle class America has lost out to Wall Street, outsourced jobs, and usurus banking practices.
    Will this decline continue or does the monied class have a plan or want to support and grow the American middle class?

  • newfreedomblog

    Dear Mr Paulson:
    .
    I am sure that you felt giving the banks a major bailout was the only choice you George Bush II and You could make, but for sake of argument and discussion, what in your mind would have happened if it would have been left alone? What did you believe at the time would have happened?
    .
    Did paying AIG the billions upon billions of dollars, who then in turn bought back all the bad paper from places like Goldman Sachs, who received 100% of the money they bet on the market and securities have anything to do with these decisions?
    .
    Do you feel any shame at all?
    .
    Why has President Obama retained nearly all of the Goldman Sachs’ employees on his “Advisory Board”?

  • http://www.twitter.com/jnsmall Jay Newton-Small

    Our briefing editor picks the questions — not Paulson.
    JNS

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