Confirmation Of A Fact
And that is that the brainiacs in charge of TARP had not the slightest clue about what they were doing.
The guy with the slightly unnerving stare above is Neel Kashkari, the 35-year-old banker picked by then Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson to design the TARP.
This article in the The Times (London) gives some behind-the-scenes details of the madness at the Treasury. Kashkari describes how:
one colleague screamed in panic over the imploding financial system, while another almost died of heart problems because he worked on the bailout rather than seeking medical treatment.
Rather than screaming or nearly having a self-induced heart-attack, Kashkari’s own way of dealing with the sh*tstorm was to stuff his face with junk food. Doritos, to be precise:
Mr Kashkari, who piled on 23 pounds as he comfort-ate family-sized bags of Doritos through the height of the credit crisis, described the panicked period between October 2008 and May 2009 as “like a dream”.
I’m sure that all the nutrients in family-sized bags of Doritos really fueled the deep thinking being done in the department. So profound was the analysis, in fact, that Kashkari,
admitted that he plucked “a number out of the air” when deciding with Mr Paulson how much funding to request from Congress for the Tarp.
I’m so glad that it was an “expert” that totally guessed how much funding should comprise TARP, rather than some completely random guy off the street. If he just “plucked a number out of the air”, then when didn’t he grab zero? What’s wrong with that figure?
It gets better. Guess what was used to calculate the bailout figures?
A new, prototype, semi-organic, super-computer?
Not quite. Kashkari used his, er, BlackBarry as a handy pocket calculator, enabling him to compute that,
We have $11 trillion residential mortgages, $3 trillion commercial mortgages. Total $14 trillion. Five per cent of that is $700 billion. A nice round number.
Quite how someone almost had a heart-attack working out calculations of that depth escapes me.
So, $700 billion was chosen because, essentially, it was “a nice round number.” As far as explanations go, that’s like claiming that Truman nuked Japan because he “had a hunch” about it. A really strong hunch, mind you.
Note to Neel: though it no doubt flatters your ego, you might not want to give more interviews to international publications that do nothing except make you look like a chump.
Just a thought.
December 10th, 2009 at 20:37
He is every bit as evil as he looks! They knew EXACTLY what they were doing, which was precisely the problem. No TARP funds went to buying up toxic assets, which is what TARP was for.
Kashkari is an ex-Goldman guy (so is Paulson, the Treasury Sec. who appointed Kashkari TARP head last year). They GAVE money to big banks, NO questions asked–but only to THEIR buddies. About 90 small banks have failed so far this year with several hundred more teetering on the brink, but the big bankers’ cabal is still going strong.
Everyone needs to understand the connection between federal government and high end banking. Our country is terribly corrupt. Visit dailybail.com and search TARP–there are over 600 entries. It is one of the ways government officials are transferring wealth from taxpayers to their cronies. It is corporate communism.
Sonic Ninja Kitty´s last blog ..This is a Pain I Must Share
December 10th, 2009 at 21:56
Gawd, can these resumes get any worse? This man is frightening, but so is Timmy Geithner (reminds me os someone who wears fishnets at night).
Is there no end to these phonies? I don’t even know where to begin.
mcnorman´s last blog ..The Decline: The Geography of a Recession In Unemployment Terms
December 10th, 2009 at 22:07
Sonic – you are the resident Fed/banking system expert, your posts on the topic are always informative. TARP was flagrant criminality.
mcnorman – that is one of the best “reminds me of…” that I’ve ever read. I’d never have made the connection, but (unfortunately) can picture it vividly, now. Yuck.
December 11th, 2009 at 21:06
One look at this guy and you know he’s right out of his fucking mind.
Maybe some young person will read this and say, “You know the Kid is awfully Naive, judging a book by it’s cover”, and I counter with “When you have the depth of life experience I have, then One look at this guy and you know he’s right out of his fucking mind.”
The Kid´s last blog ..Dude, That’s a Lot of Dust
December 11th, 2009 at 21:12
Track. Criminal. Jesus ! The Fed went to Congress over the 787 Billion. The Fed didn’t go to Congress over the approximate total of 30 Trillion that they gave to the banks foreign and domestic and Wall Street to compensate them for their ‘unfair’ losses in the mortgage bond space. The Fed doesn’t answer to Congress. That 787 billion bail out dog and pony show was pure misdirection. As Usual. How many people on the street would you surmise would have the slightest clue about 30 trillion being printed and dolled out to the mucky mucks around the world. One in a million maybe?
Anyone on Main Street feeling closer to Wall Street? I know my asshole is feeling a lot closer. Sans KY.
Wall Street and the Banks got a ‘do over’. The middle Class got a Fuck Over.
As usual.
The Kid´s last blog ..Dude, That’s a Lot of Dust
December 15th, 2009 at 16:19
Kashkari deals with problems like I do…or like YOU do…God I love Doritos.
December 18th, 2009 at 14:58
[...] world: the second item that came up in that search was Track-a-’Crat’s post on Kashkari. WAY more accurate description, Track!!) Possibly related posts: (automatically [...]