Is Kashkari a Chump?
Peeved that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson announced a major change in the use of TARP funds in a press conference instead of in front of Congress, Dennis Kucinich and his Domestic Policy Subcommittee of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform ripped into Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Stability Neel Kashkari this afternoon.
After Kashkari explained that he didn’t think “using taxpayer capital to support a financial institution that was not going to survive was a good idea”, Maryland Representative Elijah Cummings (D) incredulously asked Kashkari if he was a “chump”. Actually, he asked Kaskkari that in the third person as if he was really asking the question about somebody else. Who could he have been referring to?
Clearly, these members of Congress feel they were deceived by Paulson’s original September justification for the Emergency Economic Stabilization of Act and haven’t had the guts to ask the Secretary directly about it. Or perhaps it’s a backlash against the many golden Goldman alums scurrying about the Treasury Department’s many new activities. In any case, Secretary Paulson is clever enough about self preservation to make his about-faces in front of an obsequiece press corps (he held a press conference yesterday and is sitting down with CNBC, the Treasury Department’s new press office, this afternoon) and by sending his underlings in front of the firing line on Capital Hill.
So, is Secretary Paulson a chump? Or is Congress for giving him carte blanche?
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November 14th, 2008 at 5:33 PM
One of the congressmen admitted in the hearing that Kashkari is their employee, saying “I don’t know what we’re paying you, but you’re OUR employee.”
Afterwards, there were many efforts to belittle and intimidate this employee in plain view of TV cameras.
If I were Kashkari, I’d be sending each congressman a letter stating “You’ll hear from my attorney.” No employee in America has to take this kind of verbal abuse.
I’d quit and sue them for 10 years of salary.
November 16th, 2008 at 12:44 AM
Rep. Cummings of Baltimore, this guy is criminally uneducated, pandering to emotions rather than scrutinizing the questioner. After the first round of questioning, it became apparent that the whole testimony was nothing but a charade masqueraded by the officials to bluster and appear as if they are caustically fighting for the “average” citizen. They went on and on with specific examples of how their constituents are suffering and sophomorically dallying around trivial matters of financial market while entirely avoiding asking any meaningful question from Kashkari. I watched Kashkari’s eyes popping out in disbelief that how these buffoons are not even bothering asking him any pertinent question what so ever only to condescend him with snide array of misplaced rage.
This obsession by our leaders to keep homeowners in their home will mark the end of whatever is left in this country resembling prudence and morality. I support saving all homeowners not just the irresponsible 3 million living in Mcmansions.
Congress and Sheila Bair’s obsession with this spend-only bailout rewards the reckless and punishes the prudent. Consider the lesson it imparts to promote bailouts to the reckless. City by city, neighborhood by neighborhood, people who live beneath their means and manage money carefully will see more careless neighbors supported by federal decree. And what about the 30 percent of this nation who were smart enough to rent? Or how about the large percentage of us who gave plenty of warnings to these same people the government now wants to redistribute my taxes to so they can stay in a house twice the size the home I live in. The backlash to the 700 B bailout package was not only because of the bailout of wall street but also the bailout of the reckless homeowners and their relentless ATM / HELOC spending. As it is now these people can live in their home for over a year rent free while they find a home they should have been living in from the start.
We are becoming a nation of people who feel it is not only okay but justified to cheat, lie, and swindle each other and the rest of the population. Personal responsibility is discouraged by the government and the mainstream media. Our nation is eating ourselves from within just to keep a facade of prosperity. Hope is being replaced by anger and desperation. Welcome to the new dawn.