From Fall Street:
“This is not expenditure.” Paulson
“This is not expenditure.” Bernanke
The initial Paulson/Bernanke bailout plan was all of three pages long and was franticly cooked-up as the markets were collapsing. It reads like it was put together by a bunch of tyrannical toddlers playing with crayons. Are we really to believe given the circumstances that this plan represents an opportunity and not an expenditure for U.S. taxpayers?
“This is not an expenditure of $700 billion. This is a purchase of assets, and if auctions are done properly, evaluations are done properly, the American taxpayer will get a good value for his or her money.” Bernanke
Good value? Well Mr. Bernanke, if buying the garbage stinking up the American financial system is such an opportunity why don’t you partake in this adventure with some of your own capital? (I am quite sure the public would not mind if a few Chinese walls were broken down to allow Hank and Ben to invest some of their own funds in this scheme). Why not call the new plan ‘Opportunity USA’, get the best minds in the industry to run the entity, and entice Greenspan, Bush, Gross, and other proponents of the plan to invest funds. After all, under such a scenario it is not inconceivable that taxpayers dollars would start voluntarily rolling in to also invest.
But alas, the chain of events to create ‘Opportunity USA’ is exactly how the free market works, and the free market has already spoken and told us that the crap to be so graciously purchased by the U.S. taxpayer is indeed crap.