Spotlight on Henry Paulson

Strange Fascination's Man of the Year? -- Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
In a recent column, op ed columnist Paul Krugman despaired that there are no adults present to handle our current banking crisis. In his article titled “Where are the Grownups?”, Krugman was dismissive and critical of Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. He said that Paulson’s $700 billion bailout would benefit his cronies, and that Paulson is partly to blame for the current crisis.

I’m generally a liberal who concurs with other liberals – I might choose to close ranks with a liberal columnist in lambasting a conservative leader. However in this case, Krugman is way off-base. His reaction to the proposed bailout is fairly knee-jerk, like reactions we’ve had from both the far left and the far right. (More about that in a minute).

As a former CEO of Goldman Sachs and as a former staff assistant under the Nixon administration, Paulson’s conservative credentials are pretty substantial. But Paulson actually has some liberal credentials too. He as done work for the Nature Conservancy, and worked toward solving global warming and as well as saving endangered bird species. Other items in Pauson's mini-biography color in more details -- he is a serious, thoughtful and accomplished man. Pauslon is a devoted Christian Scientist; he distinguished himself early on in life as a Dartmouth Phi Beta Kappa and an All American offensive lineman.

Paulson isn’t proposing to make America socialistic – his personal ideals are not aligned that way. Also, he isn’t trying to give the store back to rich financiers who already “pissed it away” the first time. Rather, he is working toward a bipartisan solution that will save our banks from a credit crisis – a matter that affects every living American with a bank or retirement account.

Paulson is reaching across the aisle with such "intimidating" Democrats as Christopher Dodd and Barney Frank to help ensure that some of the debt can be recovered, struggling home owners can stay in their homes, and that nefarious tycoons get salary caps along with much-needed bank regulations. None of this sounds bad to me – it sounds pretty reasonable in fact. The solution will be painful and costly no matter what – that’s what we get for laissez-faire management and lax rules.

We’ve had many trials throughout American history. If we’re lucky someone steps into the role to steer the ship to a safe harbor. For the first few months of the Civil War, we had no Lincoln but one finally came to the fore. Paulson isn’t an elected official, nor is he running, but I think we have a captain nonetheless.

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