President George W. Bush’s last treasury secretary, a former CEO of investment bank Goldman Sachs, had frequent conversations with the current CEO of Goldman during the week of Sept. 16, when the US government handed over $85 billion to rescue the troubled insurance giant AIG.AIG’s outstanding debts to Goldman Sachs meant that $13 billion of the money handed over to AIG went directly to Goldman Sachs.
“During the week of the AIG bailout alone, Mr. Paulson and [Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd] Blankfein spoke two dozen times.
[...]
The revelation is sure to fuel further claims that the $700-billion Troubled Assets Relief Program, or TARP, passed by Congress last fall with the support of both major presidential candidates, Barack Obama and John McCain, was “gamed” by Paulson in order to help out his colleagues at Goldman — and preserve his own reputation, which he made as the bank’s CEO.
[...]
But Paulson may have done more than help his former employer get bailed out of bad debts — he may have helped orchestrate the demise of his former employer’s competitors.
And the kicker…
The $700-billion TARP bailout has been operating for nearly 11 months, and still has no official ethics guidelines attached to it, the Washington Times reported Saturday.
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
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