When Did Luca Brasi Become Deputy Treasury Secretary?
Several commentators (as well as one commenter here) duly noted how an early Associated Press account of Treasury Secretary Paulson’s $250 billion partial nationalization of major banks quoted him as saying that the offer was “not voluntary.”
Later versions of the report mysteriously purged those two words. As I noted previously, the Bank of Orwell seems to be involved.
In any case, now those two words, give or take, are back:
The chief executives of the nine largest banks in the United States trooped into a gilded conference room at the Treasury Department at 3 p.m. Monday. To their astonishment, they were each handed a one-page document that said they agreed to sell shares to the government, then Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. said they must sign it before they left.
…
“It was a take it or take it offer,” said one person who was briefed on the meeting, speaking on condition of anonymity because the discussions were private. “Everyone knew there was only one answer.”
I unfortunately don’t have “The Godfather” on DVD, so I can’t make this post into a Kip Clip. But I’ll improvise:
So the next day, my President went back, only this time with Hank Paulson. Hank Paulson held a gun to the bankers’ heads, and my President assured them that either their signatures or their brains would be on the term sheets.
That’s my government Kay, that’s not me.
Filed under: Capitalism, Libertarianism