Word: paulson
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...should be the final economic act of a Republican President was made all the more stunning by the sight of no less a free-marketeer than Vice President Dick Cheney being dispatched to the Hill to sell it to furious Republicans. But Congress is coming late to this crisis. Paulson, Bernanke and Geithner--whose conference calls can number more than half a dozen a day--have been quietly trying to keep the ship in the channel for months. Treasury Secretary Paulson, 62, was one of Wall Street's toughest dealmakers as CEO of Goldman Sachs. Fed chief Bernanke...
...three didn't know one another well when the dawning foreclosure crisis threw them together in August 2007. They bring contrasting--and sometimes contentious--styles to their countless strategy sessions, all-nighters and weekends spent away from their families. Paulson is profane and direct and talks in anecdotes. He is also the bearer of bad news, having been the one to let Lehman Brothers' chiefs know they were going down without a helping hand. Checking in from his tomblike suite of offices at the Federal Reserve on Constitution Avenue, where he monitors two computers and a TV while chewing...
...does what depends on which agency has the most authority for the task at hand. Paulson was the primary mover last fall in getting banks and mortgage companies to ease up on homeowners who faced foreclosure, while Bernanke dropped billions into jittery credit markets with a surprise rate cut. Geithner engineered the rescue in March of the investment bank Bear Stearns. In the summer, Paulson horsed Congress into giving him broad authority to seize troubled lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac--which he ended up having to use two months later. And when the three have run into interference from...
...asking Congress for $700 billion overnight when lawmakers have been unable for years to find funds for all sorts of other national priorities provoked a bitter and bipartisan backlash. "Paulson confused venture-capital behavior with leading a free society," says former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. "I don't know why Bernanke thinks a problem largely created by the Fed and the Treasury is something that only the Fed and the Treasury are smart enough to fix." Others went further: "It's financial socialism," Senator Jim Bunning of Kentucky told Paulson and Bernanke at a stormy Senate Banking Committee hearing...
...election year when voters are already furious--the trio maintained that not doing it would be even worse. "We just haven't communicated as well as we need to. The average American looks at this as being about Wall Street. They're angry, and I'm angry too," Paulson said. "But the average American doesn't understand the implications this has for them...