Found this googling Paulson and wallstreet. The comments were pretty interesting, as well. Just to give you a better idea about the guy who requested 700 billion to bail out banks with no strings attached....
[Todd Zywicki, September 26, 2008 at 11:55am] TrackbacksHank Paulson's Wall Street Days:Looks like the boom/bubble years on Wall Street served Hank Paulson pretty nicely:
Executive compensation: As Goldman's chief, Paulson received an $18.7 million cash bonus for the first half of 2006, and in 2005 he was the highest paid chief executive officer on Wall Street, reaping $38.3 million in salary, stock and options. He also accumulated 3.23 million shares of Goldman's common stock worth $492 million, plus restricted shares worth $75.2 million and options to purchase 680,474 shares, according to a Goldman regulatory filing on July 2, 2006.
He sold the shares in 2006 when he took the Treasury job:
Paulson sold his 3.23 million shares in Goldman, worth about $500 million at the time, when he took the Treasury job, according to regulatory filings. He was exempted from paying capital gains tax on the sale of those stakes under a rule meant to avoid penalizing wealthy people who take government jobs and are forced to sell assets....
http://volokh.com/posts/1222444533.shtml
My regular reader might recognize that certain things really get me going. Dishonesty and injustice are a couple of the top two.
A few days ago I discovered something which at the time did not irk me too badly, but apparently my subconcious felt differently. I awoke in the wee hours just churning, trying to get back to sleep, and figured if I wrote it I might be better able to release it.
A few weeks ago my oldest worked 2 1/2 hours at the farm stacking wood. About the same time I told a persistant Boss that I would not be returning to do fencework for various reasons. Well, a few days ago I saw the check she had mailed to my oldest for his woodstacking, and she paid him more money per hour than she was paying me for designing and installing fencesystems and carpentry work.
Now, there was no confusion as to the amount of time he worked, as I told her on the telephone myself. It just really burns me, and I am soo glad I am not committed to a job at the farm right now, or we would be having words. No wonder she was so keen to have me back. Just another stone in my face this week. :(
I do want to thank everyone for their nice comments on my foliage shots-those have been a saving grace for my ego this week, I'll tell you. :-X
On to the big wide world. Melamine. Melamine is an ingredient in plastic which is not approved for food use. In fact, it causes Kidney failure . A few months ago there was a massive pet food recall where companies had purchased feed ingredients from China which were found to contain melamine. Melamine when added to food gives a false protein reading.
I suppose you could add melamine to paper dust and it would appear to be full of protein.
Recently China has had problems with infant formula. Apparently dairy farmers were watering down their milk and adding melamine to cover the fact it was watered-down. Lots of babies have gotten sick. As US consumers we were assured that there were no legal imports of baby formula from China on the market in this country.
Then, a few days ago, there was some news that Cadbury chocolates had shown evidence of melamine. And M & M's, and snickers, and oreos-again, none in this country.
Alarmed that mass-produced food product could easily fall victim to cheap ingredient imports, I vowed to make snacks from scratch. I made a batch of peanut butter cookies tonight. Then when I awoke a little while ago, my kidneys were feeling cranky, and I started feeling a bit paranoid. How safe is that store brand flour and butter? I always assume stuff like that is produced here in this country and governed by safety regulations, but now I am not so sure.
How do I know that large corporation is not getting flour from China and re-packaging it here in the US? Or the peanut butter-even though that was a name brand. Very frustrating.
The last rant is just a hope that the House again refuses the 700 billion bailout bill for wallstreet. I think the news has been very biased in putting pressure on the public to accept this bailout package. I would have liked to have seen surveys out there which included more than two or three people. How about, "do you think congress should pass a 700 billion dollar bailout bill which would buy bad debt from banks?"
I suppose even that survey would not be accurate, as lobbyists would pay folks to sit down and repeatedly type "YES!"
I guess the fact that bothers me the most is that, Paulson, who crafted this fine plan, pretty much came straight into government from Wall Street two years ago. Conflict of interest? Certainly not!
In the beginning was the three-pointed star,
One smile of light across the empty face,
One bough of bone across the rooting air,
The substance forked that marrowed the first sun,
And, burning ciphers on the round of space,
Heaven and hell mixed as they spun.
In the beginning was the pale signature,
Three-syllabled and starry as the smile,
And after came the imprints on the water,
Stamp of the minted face upon the moon;
The blood that touched the crosstree and the grail
Touched the first cloud and left a sign.
In the beginning was the mounting fire
That set alight the weathers from a spark,
A three-eyed, red-eyed spark, blunt as a flower,
Life rose and spouted from the rolling seas,
Burst in the roots, pumped from the earth and rock
The secret oils that drive the grass.
In the beginning was the word, the word
That from the solid bases of the light
Abstracted all the letters of the void;
And from the cloudy bases of the breath
The word flowed up, translating to the heart
First characters of birth and death.
In the beginning was the secret brain.
The brain was celled and soldered in the thought
Before the pitch was forking to a sun;
Before the veins were shaking in their sieve,
Blood shot and scattered to the winds of light
The ribbed original of love.
Dylan Thomas
