...So Did Ya' Get The Memo?

As of Wednesday, October 8th, Japan and Australia pumped 15 billion dollars into money markets (Japan’s market plunged over 9 percent). Russia’s market was suspended a few times throughout the week. European finance ministers have agreed to increase an EU-wide savings deposit guarantee to 50,000 euros from 30,000, saying they would coordinate their response to the financial crisis. The UK has announced an $87 billion bank rescue package.

While the U.S. suffers from a sick economy at home, the symptoms are spreading across the world and affecting the global economy, along with world stock markets. But at this point, will methods like pumping money into the market really work? The domino effect has already deepened the world’s financial turmoil – making this a worldwide recession. It’s amazing how even after Tuesday’s presidential debate, I turned on CNN for a rerun later on and the only thing analysts were discussing was the financial crisis at home and abroad.

My question is why hasn’t the media pointed the finger at Henry Paulson? Speaker Pelosi took a beating and congress was criticized for its unorganized approach on its deliberation of the bailout bill, but Paulson snuck out the back revolving door he came in from, wiping his footsteps clean. And we keep demanding accountability?

Once again, did all of this happen when we weren’t looking, or when we simply turned a blind eye? Paulson cashed out his Goldman stock – at $575 million – to become the Secretary of Treasury (of course without having to pay taxes on the sale), not to mention he earned over $53 million to stuff his wallet just within his last two years at Goldman Sachs. Ironically enough, he earned – for lack of a better word – the extra cash through creating a new line of “Mortgage Backed Securities.” Paulson must be cackling at everybody right now. He put up more than a trillion dollars on risky subprime second mortgages and THEN converted them into AAA-rated “secure” investments. Of course, he purchased the guarantees from American International Group (AIG). Another fun fact – AIG was one of the first companies to be bailed out BY Paulson for $85 billion. Now, this time around, the $85 wasn’t taken from his ice cream money; it was BORROWED, meaning taxpayers will have to repay it WITH INTEREST. All of this was done not to just save AIG, but to prevent Goldman Sachs from holding more than $20 billion in otherwise worthless second mortgages. If that’s not enough to make you sick, how about the fact that Goldman’s current CEO, Lloyd Blankfein, was present with Paulson when the decision was made to bailout AIG.

How in the world does something like this happen without any repercussions – for them that is; because, clearly, the world is definitely feeling it on Paulson’s behalf. So, we were supposed to cough up $700 billion to Paulson and have him give it to whomever he chooses, without any public input? If anybody took just one moment to read what was written in plain language, out in the open, we would realize, how in the process, we would be giving up any say over that money:

“Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.”

May not be reviewed by any court of law??... Agency discretion?.. We completely flushed the constitution down the toilet with this one guys, if not our entire “democracy” we hold so dearly in this country.

On Sept. 15th, Paulson said he "never once" considered it would be appropriate to put taxpayer money at risk to resolve the problems at Lehman Brothers.

"Moral hazard is something I don't take lightly," he said, referring to the belief that when the government steps in to rescue a private financial firm it encourages other firms to engage in risky behavior.

A day later, Paulson teamed up with the Fed’s Ben Bernanke to engineer the $85 billion federal bailout of AIG.

So, now, this man has been handed unchecked power to use $700 billion to stabilize the economy…somebody please grab a copy of the Constitution before we forget what this country is supposed to be based on…I wonder if we’ll remember any time soon, or just continue to let the amnesia kick in…