There's still a ferocious fire in financial firms on Wall Street.
How did it get so big before people started panicking? It was an inside job. The syndicates on Wall Street - like embarrassed children caught with matches in their pockets - didn't want to admit they set the fire that is now threatening the rest of the country.
Enter Hank Paulson - Chief Fireman/Treasury Secretary and former Overlord of Goldman Sachs - the biggest alleged arsonist of all the Wall St. firms. Paulson's initial strategy was Prevention by Denial. America's short-sellers, knowing a good lie when they see one, kept driving the bank stocks down. To stem this unpatriotic behavior, Hank had short-selling banned from the kingdom, slapping his Happy Face Band-Aid on the hemorrhaging situation of Bush's "sound economy".
For Crisis Part B, Hank threw buckets of billions at Bear Stearns until they melted away. Sparks travel fast in a high wind; the inferno spread to AIG- Worlds Largest Insurer Of Everything. Since no one expected the Secretary to be able to walk AND chew gum at the same time, Lehman Brothers, unfortunately for them a former competitor of Goldman Sachs, was allowed to slowly burn to the ground. Distracted, Hank hallucinated, yelling "Jump" to Merrill Lynch who already had their fire under control. Chomping at the bit to benefit from a shotgun wedding-sweetheart-deal was the soon to be renamed Only Bank Of America! (Note From The Treasury To B of A: "Favor for overpaying for Countrywide repaid....Love, Hank")
Something is happening, or about to happen, but exactly what that is nobody seems sure - because Hank Paulson won't tell. He just needs $700 Billion, he needs it now, not tomorrow - don't ask why. The last time a guy on TV was that nervous and desperate for a large amount of money, he owed it to Tony Soprano.
The Wall Street banks collected huge fees making bad loans to people with bad credit or no provable way to repay. They bundled up these loans, slapped some lipstick on this "Investment in America" and sold them like Golden Bovines.
Now Hank wants us- the taxpayer - to make bad loans to people who have bad credit and no provable way to repay. Yep, he's slapped some lipstick on his proposed "Investment in America" - and is selling the fated calf again. "Investing", as in buying a spoiled kid a new car because he gambled away all his money and crashed his.
Hank Paulson assures us, however, that once he has our money, he'll hire "experts" from same Wall Street banks he's bailing out - to help him dispose of
the loans, which brings us full circle:, They who are the problem are also the solution. Hey, that's why this guy makes the Big Bucks.