The best (that is, the most nausea-inducing) part of this New York Times report on Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s plan to intervene directly in the banking system comes near the end:
Industry executives quickly told Mr. Paulson that they liked the idea, though they warned that the Treasury should not try to squeeze out existing shareholders. They also begged Mr. Paulson not to impose tough restrictions on executive pay and golden-parachute deals for executives who are fired.
Mr. Paulson heeded those pleas.
I know I should end here with some sort of zinger. But words fail me.
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mike_b1
Good lord. As if what Lay, Kozlowski et al attempted wasn’t enough. This time, they are looting the Treasury.Soros was right: Paulson is too vested in Wall Street to be part of the solution.
Ani
The article says the Treasury Dept. can be “lenient” about executive pay restrictions for “fairly healthy companies” — I didn’t get that from what you quoted, but I agree it sounds ominous — the kind of loophole that is just waiting for a Mack truck to come along …
Tony
Why are we not surprised? Paulson was on Wall Street for more than 30 years before coming to the Treasury. He was appointed by Bush and supported by the Democratically-controlled Senate. It’s all pathetic.
Aaron Read
Why is an article of this import hidden behind the subscribers-only part of the NY Times website?This should be front-page above the fold news. More proof that the guys who got us into this mess cannot be trusted one iota to get us out.With the potential repercussions to elected officials coming up, this should be a huge deal, shouldn’t it?
LFNeilson
Every time they mention Henry, I think of Pat.zzzzzz
Dan Kennedy
Aaron: Huh? It was the lead story, page one.
Aaron Read
When you posted it, it wasn’t to be found anywhere on the front page of the website, and when I did manage to ferret out the link, it always required that I log in as a subscriber to read the article.I dunno. That was my experience, though.(to be clear – I don’t read the NY Times in the dead tree edition…I live too far away – the Finger Lakes of upstate NY – to bother)
Dan Kennedy
Aaron: But you’re simply talking about free registration to NYTimes.com, right?