Former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill said today that our nation’s leaders — especially President Bush — are “in a panic” and haven’t thought through the $700 billion bailout plan in a rush to pass it by the end of the week.
“I don’t think he understands or knows much about any of this and it shows,” O’Neill said, adding that current Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson “knows a lot of about this, and it’s good that he’s there.” …
He doesn’t like what he’s hearing from the trail either, suspended or otherwise:
“I think most of what has been said by both campaigns about economic stuff is ill-informed and ill-advised,” he said. Asked for specific problems, O’Neill said: “Everything.”
“Hopefully, whichever one of these two people ends up being president, my prayer is that they will be better than what they have said in the campaign,” O’Neill said in an interview with ABC News this afternoon.
“We have spun ourselves into a position where intelligent people don’t believe they can tell the people the truth and still get elected, so they pander,” he added. “One can only hope that they understand the difference between campaigning and governing, and that their governing will be better than what their campaign said.”
An interesting read.
ON the other hand, WARREN BUFFETT has stated that the rescue package is essential.
Given a personal choice, I think I would put more faith in Warren Buffett.
Once dominoes start to fall, it is hard to stop them. The credit market is frozen. Next week, banks may start going belly up because of lack of credit fluidity. There $700 billion won’t just go “poof” since there are actually standing houses out there underlying the bad mortgage loans. Looks like the risks of doing nothing vastly outweigh even a bad rescue package.
Yep, that’s seems to be the sitch all right, Observer. I wonder how long it’ll take us to really take in what’s happened. I’m pretty sure that I, for one, am still laboring under a combo of ignorance and shock that’s insulating me from the full horror.
Welcome to Secret Government, Lotus. You’ll be told what you need to know when Hank Paulson decides you have a need to know.