Tag: Neel Kashkari

Dialogue Is Our Friend, Mr. Kashkari!

(h/t Huffington Post)

I hate to link to The New York Post but oh well.

To see Neel Kashkari field questions from a crowded room, one might think he’s still being paid by Goldman Sachs rather than American taxpayers.

The interim assistant secretary of the Treasury for financial stabilization yesterday had a tone of impatience during a question-and-answer session, leaving some attendees feeling cheated.

He tersely called the additional cash piped to AIG a “one-off event.”  Well, glad to have that cleared up!

I hope more news organizations follow Bloomberg’s action:

Meanwhile, Bloomberg News sued the Federal Reserve for information under the US Freedom of Information Act, claiming the Fed refuses to identify the recipients of almost $2 trillion of emergency loans as well as the troubled assets the bank is accepting as collateral.

I’ll be damned if I’m going to speculate about a yet-again secretive series of actions using our taxpayer money.  The issue here is about transparency — we shouldn’t have to run around like Nancy Drew finding out what should be neither a secret nor a mystery.

We’ve lived for 8 years under the most secretive misAdministration in my lifetime.  Clearly our corporations and other big bidness has been secretive as well, and it’s become a national sickness, imo.

Enough already.  Time to let the sunshine in … all the way in.

$700 Billion Bailout to be Run by Man with 6 Years Experience

Today, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson appointed Neel Kashkari to oversee the $700 billion bailout of the nation’s financial crisis. That’s right Kashkari is now the interim Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Stability.

Who?

Neel Kashkari, a former banker at Paulson’s old company, Goldman Sachs, who earned his M.B.A. from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 2002.

Paulson’s move certainly inspires the confidence a panicky financial community needs right now, doesn’t it?

The “Deal Journal” blog at The Wall Street Journal has some background on Kashkari. The post notes, Paulson’s “move essentially puts a new title on what Kashkari he has been doing since he joined Treasury in 2006-examining the consequences of an economic housing fallout.”

So, after two years of watching the collapse, he’s in charge of fixing it?

Come on! Kashkari has only six years of financial experience!