Monday, September 22, 2008

Rocking the Casbah with Komissar Paulson


Words Of The Week- Treasury Commissar Hank Paulson unleashed the term of the week “illiquid assets”. Illiquid is defined by Merriam-Webster as 1 : not being cash or readily convertible to cash 2 ; deficient in liquid assets. Another interesting term attributed to the bailout program is “clawback-provision” which ascertains that the Commissar would have the powers to force companies to recoup previous payments to executives of the companies involved in the government bailout. It is definitely proving to be a Safire week as we try to comprehend the “official speak” and word choices of this latest bailout. Commissar Paulson insisting on a “clean” bill being passed by Congress; “clean” in this context pretty much meaning no strings attached. What is beginning to happen to this 3-page bailout bill, is full on lobbying by the finance industry. Initially, it was to bailout only bad mortgage debts, but somewhere during the weekend “all financial instruments” were added. Additionally, this program was to only rescue US firms since it is funded by taxpayer dollars, but now any financial firm can be added. So American taxpayers could very well be bailing out foreign-owned firms. I ask all of you to pay close attention as Commissar Paulson continues to consolidate the means of production into the government’s hands while trying to jam through this 3-page document with no provisos for oversight of how he intends to spend nearly a trillion dollars of taxpayer’s monies.

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