Inside Man
Simon Johnson
TNR
On The Brink: Inside the Race to Stop the Collapse of the Global Finance System
by Henry Paulson Jr.
Business Plus, 478 pp., $28.99
Hank Paulson sounds tough. His gravelly delivery starts out strong. The voice is that of a seasoned and fair-minded cop sorting out the ruffians, and the hard-boiled dialogue is straight from Raymond Chandler. Speaking of his plans to act immediately against some specific financial sector CEOs and their boards of directors, he says “Mr. President, ... we’re going to move quickly and take them by surprise. The first sound they’ll hear is their heads hitting the floor.”
As I say, a great opening. This is exactly what we need—a top-tier Wall Street dealmaker and experienced executive who knows how to bring major-league pressure to good banks gone bad, and who uses that knowledge to depose miscreants while safeguarding the public purse. We might have opened his book worrying about the fact that its author, the man who was charged with confronting Wall Street about the damage it caused to the economy and the country, used to run Goldman Sachs, but immediately he sounds like a big-time poacher turned gamekeeper. We can all sleep that little bit easier.
Or can we? This is only three lines into the book and something already sounds wrong. Haven’t we heard far too much lately about Wall Street attitudes and behavior to take Paulson’s statements so readily at face value? One sentence later and all is clear: Paulson is talking about his takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, an important episode for people working at those Government Sponsored Enterprises, but largely a sideshow to the main business of 2008, which was the complete collapse and the unconditional bailout of the purely private firms—and the people who run them—that dominate Wall Street. Or, rather, the way in which the most “pro-market” people in our economy all became Government Sponsored and made out like bandits along the way.
(More here.)
TNR
On The Brink: Inside the Race to Stop the Collapse of the Global Finance System
by Henry Paulson Jr.
Business Plus, 478 pp., $28.99
Hank Paulson sounds tough. His gravelly delivery starts out strong. The voice is that of a seasoned and fair-minded cop sorting out the ruffians, and the hard-boiled dialogue is straight from Raymond Chandler. Speaking of his plans to act immediately against some specific financial sector CEOs and their boards of directors, he says “Mr. President, ... we’re going to move quickly and take them by surprise. The first sound they’ll hear is their heads hitting the floor.”
As I say, a great opening. This is exactly what we need—a top-tier Wall Street dealmaker and experienced executive who knows how to bring major-league pressure to good banks gone bad, and who uses that knowledge to depose miscreants while safeguarding the public purse. We might have opened his book worrying about the fact that its author, the man who was charged with confronting Wall Street about the damage it caused to the economy and the country, used to run Goldman Sachs, but immediately he sounds like a big-time poacher turned gamekeeper. We can all sleep that little bit easier.
Or can we? This is only three lines into the book and something already sounds wrong. Haven’t we heard far too much lately about Wall Street attitudes and behavior to take Paulson’s statements so readily at face value? One sentence later and all is clear: Paulson is talking about his takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, an important episode for people working at those Government Sponsored Enterprises, but largely a sideshow to the main business of 2008, which was the complete collapse and the unconditional bailout of the purely private firms—and the people who run them—that dominate Wall Street. Or, rather, the way in which the most “pro-market” people in our economy all became Government Sponsored and made out like bandits along the way.
(More here.)
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