CHESSNOID

The man who helped bring down the US economy is asking for more money to waste.  The man who denied the recession over a year ago existed is now saying the apocalypse is here.  He is the last person anyone should be listening to.  He keeps singing the same old song, crying wolf, and basically should have been fired a million times over for the poor job he has done.

Washington Post:

Paulson said the Treasury and the Federal Reserve have enough resources to handle a crisis for the time being. “It is clear, however, that Congress will need to release the remainder of the TARP to support financial market stability,” he said in a statement.

Despite the urgent need for the funds, the Bush administration has not yet made a decision on whether to request the money, a Treasury official said. Paulson is concerned that Congress would say no, an event that could trigger havoc on the markets, according to sources who have been in contact with the Treasury.

The possibility of congressional rejection is real. Key lawmakers in both parties have expressed anger at how Paulson used the first half of the money, saying it was haphazardly managed, and have said they would be reluctant to hand over the rest to the Bush administration.

I think both Bernanke and Paulson have lost all credibility that even Bush doesn’t believe them. I didn’t believe Paulson’s plea when he asked for the bailout in October. I was happy when Congress rejected it the first time and disappointed when they failed us the second time they voted. We can see now Paulson was either lying or just plain wrong.

I will be watching to see if the new Obama administration can think for itself or if it will follow the poor advice of the failed Paulson.

NYTimes:

UNFORTUNATELY, Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. has turned this old song into the unofficial theme of the Troubled Assets Relief Program, the $700 billion bailout. His frequent changes of direction are not only embarrassing, they also upset the very markets this program was designed to calm.

It pains me to say this, because I was among the first to call upon Congress to create two institutions to deal with the financial crisis: one to buy and refinance home mortgages, the other to buy what came to be called “troubled assets.” The legislation signed in October empowered the TARP to do both. Sadly and amazingly, it has done neither.