BLOOMBERG NEWS: Paulson Plan To Mostly Benefit His Old Cronies at Goldman Sachs

You can't make this stuff up:

Paulson Debt Plan May Benefit Mostly Goldman, Morgan

Sept. 22 (Bloomberg) -- Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley may be among the biggest beneficiaries of the $700 billion U.S. plan to buy assets from financial companies while many banks see limited aid, according to Bank of America Corp.

Paulson, you might remember, came to the Treasury Department right from a top job at Goldman Sachs. Oh, and remember the part about my In These Times article yesterday about the Paulson proposal giving him carte blance to overpay for worthless mortgages? Check this out:

Bank lobbying groups today asked Congress and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to suspend a rule that forces companies to put a price on difficult-to-value assets such as subprime mortgages.

In other words, they want a rule so that they don't have to publicly price the worthless mortgages - so that when the bailout comes, the taxpayers can be forced to overpay for them. As Oregon Rep. Peter DeFazio (D) said, this is a clear instance of Congress being "rolled by a Wall Street executive who is masquerading as the secretary of the Treasury."

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