Senator Jim Bunning calls out Henry Paulson – “You are acting like the minister of finance in China”
Below is a wonderful article posted in Bloomberg. What took the media so long? And, even worse, what took our Congress so long to figure this out?
We had the greatest bailout in the history of America. Taxpayers are going to be “propping up” Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. (With what money? Oh – that’s right inflation…. see how government steals through legal plunder and inflation HERE .) What ever happened to “free markets”? Currently, the banks of America are anything but “free”. (Maybe if they’d wake up and listen to Ron Paul more, they’d have a clue.)
Let’s put it this way – if you go start a business selling popsicles and your customer base doesn’t pick up and you end up losing money, does the government come and say, “Well, here’s 1 million dollars for trying to sell popsicles” – we’ll bail you out.” NO NO NO! So why does our government do it with a TRILLION dollar industry? It’s beyond ridiculous.
But that’s exactly what government has done with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac!
No wonder Senator Jim Bunning spoke up! And rightfully so! Here’s the article:
Senator Bunning Says Paulson Acts Like Socialist, Should Resign — Senator Jim Bunning said Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, by rescuing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, is acting like China’s finance minister and both Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke should step down.
By Matthew Benjamin
Sept. 9 (Bloomberg)
“I sincerely believe that Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke should resign,” said Bunning, a Republican from Kentucky on the Senate Banking Committee. “They have taken the free market out of the free market.”
Paulson and the federal regulator for Fannie and Freddie placed the two largest U.S. mortgage-finance companies in a government-operated conservatorship on Sept. 7, ousting their chief executives and eliminating their dividends. Treasury also may purchase up to $200 billion of stock in the firms to keep them solvent.
“We no longer have a free market in the United States, we have a government controlled free market,” Bunning said in an interview. Paulson, a former chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., “is acting like the minister of finance in China.”
Bunning, 76, criticized Paulson’s successful effort in July to obtain congressional authority to pump unlimited amounts of money into Fannie and Freddie to keep them afloat.
“When I picked up my newspaper yesterday, I thought I woke up in France. But no, it turned out it was socialism here in the United States,” he told Paulson at a July 15 Senate Banking Committee hearing.
Following Paulson’s Sept. 7 announcement of the takeover of Fannie and Freddie, Bunning said he now feels like a citizen of China.
Former Phillies Pitcher
“No company fails in communist China, because they’re all partly owned by the government,” said the former pitcher for the Philadelphia Phillies.
Bunning accused Paulson of deception when he told Congress in July that the Treasury’s plan would instill such confidence among investors that it would never have to be used.
Paulson “saw and knew what was happening, and didn’t tell the truth to the banking committee,” Bunning said yesterday.
Treasury spokeswoman Michele Davis didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Bunning, a critic of former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, faults Bernanke for lax supervision of the mortgage market.
The Fed chief waited too long to require lenders to change how they write mortgages, Bunning said. “I mean he just did it two months ago. Come on.”
When asked if he expects more multibillion dollar rescues by Treasury, Bunning said, “You bet I do.”
He said Paulson on Sept. 7 should have detailed an overhaul in the business model of Fannie and Freddie.
Bunning predicted in July that, contrary to statements by the Treasury, Paulson would provide capital to Fannie and Freddie.
“Every time we propose and do something, it always gets used,” he told Paulson at the July banking committee hearing.
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