…were earned for what? John Gapper of the FT has done some digging around, and found that in the period before Paulson quit being GS’s CEO to become US Treasury Secretary in May 2006, he was busy slicin’, dicin’, and repackagin’ those old mortgage-backed securities along with the rest of them.
Gapper found that GS’s regulatory filing for the first quarter of 2006 reported that,
- During the three months ended February 2006 and February 2005, the firm securitised $19.25bn and $15.24bn, respectively, of financial assets, including $18.15bn and $14.43bn, respectively, of residential mortgage loans and securities.
And GS had also by that time apparently acquired additional investments in mortgage-backed and other allegedly asset-backed (in-)securities and CDOs, including $22 billion of CDOs, $2.9bn of “asset repackagings and credit-linked notes” and $6.5bn of “mortgage-backed and other asset-backed” securities…
Well, I guess that for “Hank” Paulson, as everyone seems very chummily to refer to him, where you stand really does depend on where you sit.
Because yesterday, he was all over the airwaves denouncing as “irresponsible” the way in which the big banks and financial houses had been slicing’ and dicin’ all those worthless pieces of mortgage-paper junk.
Gapper also recalls that GS gave Paulson a performance bonus of $18.7 million for the first half of 2006.
Intriguing to see even such a dedicated free-marketer as John Gapper wondering in public whether,
- as a public gesture, Mr Paulson might consider handing that bonus over to the Treasury’s fund and lowering the US taxpayer’s bill by $18.7m?
The highest paid official in the US government is the President, at $400 million thousand (nice digs, Air Force One, helicopters, etc not included.)
I see John McCain today said during a campaign stop that “The senior executives of any firm that is bailed out by Treasury should not be making more than the highest paid government official.”
Not a bad principle, at all.
As usual, Senator Leahy is on the case! His contributions to our well-being are enormous.
http://leahy.senate.gov/press/200809/092208a.html
Food for thought!
KDJ
Helena,
Are you sure you don’t mean $400 thousand for the President?
Love your column by the way. I find information and views I get anywhere else.
Thanks Jim, Jim, Laleh, and all who noted my error there, since corrected….
Leahy’s language is an improvement, but the whole concept is wrong.
Is Leahy OK with taxpayers bailing out all the foreign banks too?
If Leahy really wanted to contribute to our welfare he could offer an alternative responsible plan. Here’s one I like. Force all the banks to issue new equity (so there is no “shame” in it), then have the government buy it at market price. New capital for the banks, fair treatment for taxpayers!
Eighteen mil? Peanuts. Taking Hank on-board the ship of state cost the US Treasury over a hundred mil (not counting the damage he’s done).
2006 news report:
///Former Goldman Sachs CEO Henry Paulson sold about $500 million worth of Goldman Sachs stock in June, 2006 shortly after the U.S. Senate voted to confirm his appointment as U.S. Treasury Secretary.
Under U.S. government ethics rules, while Paulson was required to sell the shares, he was also exempt from paying taxes on any capital gains on the sale if he obtained a certificate of divestiture. The rule granting the exemption is designed to make sure prospective government employees who own a lot of stock are not dissuaded from joining the government.///
Just think where we’d be if Hank had been dissuaded from joining the government!
This is off topic, but I wanted to bring to your attention a report by Matthew Yglesias at Think Progress today (Sept. 23) about the issue of deadlines in the SOFA being negotiated. It quotes Maliki as saying that he put in a withdrawal deadline of 2011, rather than the 2010 he wanted, to satisfy a Bush administration request that the deadline not negatively affect the McCain campaign as much by being further away from Obama’s deadline. If you remember, I think McCain came out after that saying he wanted to withdraw troops by 2013. At the end of the piece, he links to a fuller report on this.
It’s certainly possible that Maliki is covering his flank with the nationalist opposition by saying this, but I can equally, or more, see the Bush administration making such a request.
I’d be interested in your thoughts.
This is off topic, but I wanted to bring to your attention a report by Matthew Yglesias at Think Progress today (Sept. 23) about the issue of deadlines in the SOFA being negotiated. It quotes Maliki as saying that he put in a withdrawal deadline of 2011, rather than the 2010 he wanted, to satisfy a Bush administration request that the deadline not negatively affect the McCain campaign as much by being further away from Obama’s deadline. If you remember, I think McCain came out after that saying he wanted to withdraw troops by 2013. At the end of the piece, he links to a fuller report on this.
It’s certainly possible that Maliki is covering his flank with the nationalist opposition by saying this, but I can equally, or more, see the Bush administration making such a request.
I’d be interested in your thoughts.
Maliki is covering his flank with the nationalist opposition by saying this
The US has not so far agreed to 2011. Maliki is not ‘covering his flank’, he is forced to be serious, as Iraqi opinion does not allow any other course of action. I would imagine Iraqis wouldn’t care about a difference between 2010 and 2011, if there was a commitment to withdraw.