Word: paulsons
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Warren Buffett said so, along with a number of other financial analysts. Bank balance sheets are so complex that applying one set of measures for all of them is irresponsible reductionism, these analysts argued. The second part of the fraud was much more elaborate. The government, led by Henry Paulson, forced large banks to take TARP money that they did not need. He made sure that the taxpayers received preferred shares in the firms in exchange for the capital. After Paulson retired the new administration began testing the banks, knowing that, based on the criteria they had set, many...
...will eventually become an important part of the history of American capitalism and the banking system. In the meantime, the public has loved watching the tension of big companies pitted against big government. Rich and famous bankers have been ridiculed in public. Some have lost their jobs. Hank Paulson, a well-built former Dartmouth football player and former head of Goldman Sachs and mild-mannered Ben Bernanke have been accused of manipulating a major decision by a public company, Bank of America's (BAC) decision about whether it should by Merrill Lynch, overriding the normal and legal corporate governance system...
That does not mean that the bank cannot play the Merrill card in the court of public opinion. B of A's CEO Ken Lewis has already made the case the Henry Paulson virtually forced him to close the Merrill deal because it was in the best interests of the country's troubled financial system. If that transaction is at the heart of B of A's capital shortfall, the firm has a legitimate argument that because it helped the government when it was in a jam, it is time for the government to repay the favor...
...Stressing independence from big business could boost a government's image. In the Chicago Booth/Kellogg School poll, 40% of Americans felt former U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson - previously the boss of Goldman Sachs - had been acting in the interests of the investment bank, and not America...
...Saving the banking system was not Lewis's job. Bernanke and Paulson had no right to ask him to abandon what were his very clear duties and press him into service doing something contrary to the obligations of his office. Since there will never be answers to what would have happened if B of A had abandoned Merrill it is useless to speculate about whether Paulson and Bernanke did the right thing. What happened when Lewis was asked to take a role which was not reasonably his is that the ethical obligation of refraining from force to pervert another person...