Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Fully baked concept

Senator Corker asked Secy Paulson today:
You want 700 billion dollars and no one can explain how it is going to work. ... You bring back to us a fully backed concept ...
The point is that it is just crazy to give Paulson a $700B blank check with no good explanation as to how he is going to spend the money. Even if the crisis is as bad as he says, it would be better to just give him a little money until he has a detailed proposal.

Paulson was asked the most basic questions about why he wanted authority to buy credit card debt and student loans, whether he would be buying second mortgages, how he will avoid corrupting in his traders, and how his plan is any better than the obvious alternatives. He could not answer any of these questions, except to say that he was doing what he thought was best.

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