Self styled il Duce of finance Paulson pleads his case in the New York Times

Go online for the 23 October 2008 edition of 'The New York Times'. You will find a picture of self styled il Duce of finace & US secretary of the treasury Henry Paulson. He looks like a deer caught in the headlights of a oncoming motorcar tearing down a country road; he freezes; he doesn't know what to do, to save himself. Read Joe Nocera's timely article on his interview with Paulson which says what 18Brumaire has kept hammering away at, that Paulson was always chasing the after effects of the subprime mortgage Ponzi scheme, which he at Goldman Sachs, among other bulge bracket banks devised and make handsome profits off the unsuspecting public; il Signor Paulson has failed miserably on his watch; he's not enough guts to step down, the more especially since it was his decision to let Lehman fail with an insouciance which simply boggles the mind, and shows him up for an incompetent. He let the largest purveyor of commercial paper go belly up, and as a result, the markets worldwide went ballistics. What does he have to say for himself? Not guilty, he pleads. He did his best, wink, wink, wink. The plain, commonsense truth is that blinded by his complete obedience to the free markets, with no oversight, and benign neglect of goverance, he couldn't think outside the box. In this he is in the league of Alan Greenspan whose sybilline commentary masked his utter slavishness to his goddess Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman, let the thread of the economy unravel. 18Brumaire doesn't think that il Signor Paulson suffers much. He muddles along and almost threw world markets into a depression. Luckily, UK's Gordon Brown who knows a thing or two about economics managed to hold the beast of depression at bay, and il Signor Paulson had no choice to go along, even though he's down everything to water down regulation, mild or otherwise, in the market place. Il Signor Paulson sheds a crocodile tear or two, but he should be put on trial for his negligence at the treasury. More, he says that he couldn't foresee the radioactive disintergration of the subprime mortgage Ponzi scheme. Really! Well, Goldman Sachs did and it sold off its share to any willing and greedy buyer without saying boo. So in the end we've a man who brought about a stock market krash and infected the global economy and put his finger in the sordid pie, licking his thumb saying, what a good little boy am I! but ain't taking no rap for the mischief I've done!