Fire (Or Impeach) Paulson and His Stooges!

Now that the first vote on the bailout has shot it down (thanks to the urging of Mike and me–see post below–actually thanks to the rare working of representative government by those on both sides of the aisle who rejected it), it’s time for some accounting. First of all, Treasure Secretary Paulson should have been fired when he sent Congress a flagrantly unconstitutional bill that would make him tin-pot dictator with no judicial review for his actions. As if the constitution were toilet paper.

Then he should have been fired yesterday when it was revealed (on the front page of The Times) that he brought a fellow stooge from his old firm, Goldman, Sachs–the chief executive!–into an emergency meeting about the fate of A.I.G.–a fate in which Goldman had huge undisclosed (to the public) stake–and one from which all other corporate finance stooges were excluded.

This is breathtaking contempt for the rule of law (the no judicial review provision) and then an astonishing, shameless naked display of crony capitalism corruption. Where were the law school profs to protest no judicial review? An astonishing dereliction of civic duty.

Paulson should be kicked out of his office forthwith and all his papers and e-files locked down so the Feds can see the full extent of his corruption. And anyone else who signed off on that original blatantly unconstitutional bill should be identified and fired as well. It was the well-earned bad faith created by these acts that were the final nails in the coffin of this attempted “shock doctrine” coup. (The reference by the way is to Naomi Klein’s book of that title (The Shock Doctrine) which I once thought was a disturbing account of the kind of things plutocrats got away with only in banana reublics. Paulson tried to turn us into one.

Yes I know both parties and both campaigns are riddled with corporate stooges who are complicit in this crisis. So purge them! Now! Whichever campaign is the first to insitute a fire-all-investment-banker policy can win the election. Yes it’s too late but it will have symbolic value.

But I’m sick of hearing it blamed on would-be homeowners. No, it’s the fault of those who spun derivatives out of derivatives out of derivatives from the bad paper and turned the economy into a casino. It’s the culture of greed.

Once again: put Ralph Nader in charge of the clean up. If you’ve stilll got 700 billion kicking around (as aparently we did) then distribute it (proportionately) to the poor.