Talk:Henry Paulson/Archive 1

message: I, for one, am awaiting a public appearance of Henry Paulson to fully discount rumors of his death / murder. Until then, I withhold judgment. I believe many of you are being intellectually dishonest by suppressing information about his arrest and / or death. It is not possible for us to know the truth truth, only what sources tell us, and in politics, those sources almost always provide only partial information, spin, or half-truths. It is intellectually dishonest to keep removing information about his arrest / death from his page. It should be listed under a controversies heading until it is demonstrably proven either way. For his arrest, it may never be shown beyond doubt. For his death, the controversy is over next time he appears in public. Until then, I have to question the intent, bias, and intellectual honesty of those who keep suppressing the subjects. Chaos Motor (talk) 19:57, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: One day after you posted this, Paulson himself made a public appearance at the Capitol. So there you go... I'd say that's proof that as of 1/5/08 he was in fact alive. He's made many public appearances since then too. 75.70.123.215 (talk) 03:37, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Intellectual Dishonesty 

message: I pulled this comment off the page, which was probably intended for the talk page:
For an update add Nov. 28, 2005, Newsweek piece on Goldman Sachs, Hank Paulson, and the NY Stock Exchange.
— brighterorange (talk) 13:33, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Moved to talk 

message: What is Paulson's middle name? --MZMcBride 19:03, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Middle name? 

message: since paulson has only been a admin person and not a real deal person
throughout his entire career, does he know anything about markets at all except the buzz words ???? meaning he is an apparent paper qualified person for the job but in fact is a stooge with little knowledge.
One wonders what the USA could have been if Rubin, Paulson knew enough about the US economy to contribute anything instead of being a do nothing appointment. So Paulson nomination follows in that fine traditional Goldman Sachs mold of lacklusterness.
Some years ago Gus Levy of Goldman Sachs followed more recently by John Whitehead were actual real contributing persons vs the deadbeat, stooge roll of this listed bevy.
Rubin was esp noteworthy for triggering near collapses in 5 separate international currencies by utter, bizare ineptitude for a US Secretary of the Treasury. The Rubin style -
1) have Wall street pals & and your firm viciously attack the currency to create 1st a faux, then a real crisis, knocking the currency down 15-30%
2) then announce loudly & publically that there would be no US Aid to support the currency in crisis, usually knocking that currency further down 50-60%
3) then bail out resulting collapsing positions caused by Wall Street pals for huge profits by switcherooing to massive US Aid.
This Ruben psychotic management of global currency crises were crises for the following:
Thai Baht
[Detail of the "Rubin style" - to set up fake currency crises]
Indonesian rupiah/rupee/ruppee
[[http://www.nimbupani.com/blog/blog-entry/asian-financial-crisis-1997.html
Crisis in Indonesian rupiah / rupee which fell 80% v. the US dollar ]]
Argentian peso
[Argentine Peso Crisis of 2001]
Mexican peso (called "$50 billion bailout for Goldman Sachs friends & Mexican drug lords") (see []
and see [Peso crisis by Prof DeLong])
Russian ruble
[1998 Russian ruble collapse] Of course as mentioned, instead of near or perfect insanity, the above Rubin sytle could be thought of as a "playbook" to make billions for your "former" firm on Wall Street.
And / or it could be viewed as a US policy targeting and even profiteering on weaker 3rd world countries, led by Secretary of US Treasury. BUT, the massive mushroom cloud of US Debt rapidly increasing by Iraq war and out of control other spending (not even 100s of billions but trillions) makes this strip mining of very small $10s of billions from 3rd world, a sorry sad policy that torpedoes the lives of millions of the poor.
:I removed the statements above from the article. If there are published sources for these statements, please provide them. Jokestress 04:35, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I doubt that reputable sources will be found the support the above heavily-biased-POV comments. Indeed, most comments are just the opposite, such as this Bloomberg report, or this from the Chi Tribune.
(I doubt one can rise to the top of Goldman Sachs with "little knowlege") -- Sholom 14:14, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Real discussion 

message: The article now says He began in the position on July 3, 2006, when Snow's resignation took effect. But this article (and others) says that he won't be sworn in until Monday, July 10th. Isn't the swearing-in date the "beginning" date? John Broughton 00:19, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Starting date? 

message: Henry Paulson as CEO of Goldman Sachs invested GS money in slaughterhouse
operations and animal flesh sales. As president of Nature Conservancy
he turned wilderness shrines on more than 1 continent into cattle operations.
Pyroponce 19:16, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Critics 

message: During WWII, Vidkund Quisling, worked actively to aid the Nazi takeover of Norway, leading to the use
of his name quisling to denote a person who is an active, willing traitor.
Please review the multiple trips of Paulson to China that resulted in the sellout of his former firm
Goldman Sach's competitors to the Chinese Sovereign Fund (China Investment Fund)(Morgan Stanley) and to the Citic Securities Firm (Bear Stearns)- China government controlled stooge entities.
This unparalleled sellout of his firm's Wall street competitors and sale of USA core economic jewels
to un preditable and clearly heavily militarristic Chicom gov't bent on USA takeover, ranks Paulson
as THE quisling of all time. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.250.203.180 (talk) 19:00, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  "the [[quisling]]" 

message: I heard he was arrested in germany recently.anyone can confirm this? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.230.38.113 (talk) 13:37, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If he has why hasn't Bush's office, Cheney's office or Bolten's office said anything about this? Carpet9 22:09, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I found this site with a picture of him at Ford's funeral: . It's a hoax. -- Yekrats 20:12, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: However, the website that is the source of the claim, did state on the 2nd that Paulson was at Ford's funeral. Alan Pascoe 20:22, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Arrest rumors. 

message: I think this article should be locked and we need to cite a news source for a dead Henry Paulson.
mickrussom (talk) 03:41, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The Secretary of the Treasury dying would probably be a top news story on just about news website, and I can't find anything. Concur protection should be requested through WP:RFPP. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 05:08, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I have requested semi-protection (protection from IP editors) at RFPP. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 02:25, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gunshot wound? Died? 

message: Pulled this off the page:
Unverified Internet rumors claim that Paulson died 1-2-2008 from gun shot wounds. Although unlikely to be true it has been spread to many places on the web.
=Im adding in here my source for this story of Paulson death on 1-2-08 , i just want to state all the information ive ever got from this site has been true and when it comes to facts and things like this if you check anything else on there youll see it all adds up but please be unbiased i still am and acknowledge it may not be true but given my source i believe him to be dead and with good reason thank you.= Link - 
because it was not even referenced. so list the sites, and don't say "unlikely to be true" - why is it unlikely? or likely? just leave it as the first sentence, with a reference to some of those sites - actually if you check around you'll find it is only ONE site that has made the claim. So list that, and let people make up their minds. --125.25.43.56 (talk) 06:12, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: See WP:BLP, WP:V. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 06:44, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh, and he gave a speech at the Capitol today. I highly doubt he'd be capable of this had he been assassinated. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 00:20, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Unless it was a hologram  *rollseyes* I like reading conspiracy sites, they make me giggle. Cryomaniac (talk) 16:55, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh yes, because our hologram technology is sophisticated enough to produce cabinet members. —Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 22:59, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Prince Charles appeared at a conference by hologram... Cryomaniac (talk) 11:51, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe so, but he's alive at the moment. I don't think we've progressed to a Star Trek-like technology level where we can create holographic characters that aren't actually being taped from a remote location.—Scott5114↗ [EXACT CHANGE ONLY] 15:21, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: As far as I know, the Prince Charles thing was pre-taped (i.e it wasn't live). I'm not saying that that happened in this Paulson case, and of course I think he's still alive. I'm just pointing out that the hologram thing is (vaguely) plausible... Cryomaniac (talk) 22:06, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Assassination of Henry Paulson by Chinese Secret Society 

message: Is it true that Henry Paulson retired from Goldman with a half billion dollars in bonuses, salary, pension, etc.? Has the breakdown been given in detail? Has anything been said about his investments now? Are his personal investments safe? Has he made a profit on all the confusion? Was any of his money made by selling the financial instruments in these fraudulent loans that caused this crisis? Has he offered to give any of this money to help americans? Did he and others take everything from Goldman - leaving an empty shell of a company? Will the proposed tax cuts, wanted by the Republican Senators, in order to pass Paulson's bill, benefit Paulson directly? Will these possible additional tax cuts actually mean that the rich will end up paying a smaller share of taxes? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.94.176.22 (talk) 02:47, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Half a Billion Dollars 

message: Vietnam was THE issue for men Paulson's age. Paulson is described in the article as a very good athlete, so how was he able to avoid military service at a time when millions of men were drafted? No biography of a person Paulson's age is remotely close to being full or complete without such information. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.44.147.74 (talk) 04:49, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Article Touts Paulson's Football Ability, But Doesn't Explain How Paulson Avoided the Draft and Vietnam 

message: This article is highly dubious and is in severe need of rigorous updating given the current financial situation. It is very, very, very, very unlikely that Paulson placed narrowing the financial gap between the rich and poor as a top priority for the treasury given that the Bush administration has made constant and consistent efforts to concentrate wealth and worked against the interests of lower income consumers. This article by Spitzer is pretty clear about the systematic efforts on the part of the administration in this regard: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/13/AR2008021302783.html
Cicero79 (talk) 00:12, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dubious article 

message: Why do people keep changing his political affiliation to Democrat?
FYI, while he hides it quite well his contribution record makes it clear.
http://www.newsmeat.com/ceo_political_donations/Henry_Paulson.php
http://www.politicalbase.com/people/henry-paulson/15948/
As well USAToday states it right here: http://www.usatoday.com/money/2006-05-30-paulson-money-usat_x.htm
"Once a junior official in the Nixon administration before starting at Goldman in 1974 for $30,000 a year. Paulson, a Republican, is atypical in his passion about the environment, a passion critics say has interfered with his responsibility to shareholders."
So the same guy who got a 200 million dollar tax break for taking a government position which forces the sale of his GS stock to prevent a conflict of interest is then allowed to take our Money and put it back into the very company that is failing for the shitty loans they financed on his watch? Wow amazing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.71.61.132 (talk) 21:15, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know why it's being changed -- I changed it back... 68.117.68.57 (talk) 19:30, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  He is Republican not Democrat 

message: As of 10-2-08, I believe this Wikipedia article on Paulson combined with that on Elliott Spitzer made it possible to discern that Paulson was in charge of Goldman Sachs during a period when it was under investigation by Spitzer for fraudulent activity. Unless I missed something, that info is now gone. I think it should be restored. Auralee (talk) 05:37, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Editing Since 10-2-08 Has Deleted Material Info 

message: At the end of first paragraph 4.2 it is stated that Paulson worked with Bernanke to arrange the birdge loan of $85 for AIG.
Further facts should be added in that, in the preceding days before this loan was arranged, Timothy Geitner, president of NY Fed, had announced and published in NYC newspapers that he would not make this loan as AIG had been asking for a loan of 35-40 billion from the Fed Res for a week. And that public request resulted in the Timonthy Geitner refusal to loan AIG anything.
Then, Geitner, Paulson and Bernake were all 3 informed of the 100s of billions in mortgage insurance that AIG had issued and also the trillions in derivatives insurance that AIG had issued and informed of the further clear conclusion that without supporting the AIG loan and allowing AIG to fail, this massive amount of market related insurance defaulting would cause a global market collapse. This info did NOT come from AIG but from private party to these three - Paulson, Bernanke and Geitner who had no knowledge of AIG's importance to markets.
And today making that AIG loan is credited with saving the global markets from collapse.
But that occurred as just explained and not from any knowledge of Paulson , Bernanke or Geitner but from advice of outside party that reversed the already refusal by the Fed to loan AIG anything as announced publicly by Gietner. (So that outside party is one who saved markets from collapse - NOT Geitner, Bernanke, Paulson)
This lack of market knowledge by all three , Paulson, Geitner, and Bernanke, is important to understand in understanding depth of market understanding in current proposals to allow US Treasury to dictate systemic risk decision, when no one at the US Treasury other than saying those words , has shown any knowledge of markets to be able to determine what that systemic risk is.
willy, market guru SR 69.121.221.97 (talk) 01:13, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  See as special ref - "Eight Days", New Yorker Sept 14, 2009, pages 58-81 by James Stewart summarizing what occurred in the eight days Sept 15-23, 2008 with heavy interviews by James Stewart of Paulson, Bernanke, Geitner - with article still not doing much but skimming the surface and YOUR OWN conclusion they(Bernanke, Paulson, Geitner) did know what was was happening then , did not understnad what was occuring the past year and still do not ... esp see pitiful details, that e.g. they know knothing about AIG situation (also see above) ; did not know what would occur if they let Lehman Bros fail; refused to lend Lehman Bros money to prevent its failing, (Lehman needed only 20-50 billion) and day after it entered bankrupticy and next 2 eays they loaned Lehman Bros brokerage $160 billion !!!! which would have totally, easily prevented Lehman Bros demise; then the runs on money market funds caused by the Lehman Bankruptcy nearly caused a collapse which never occurred to them ... Geitner repeateldy stating to anyone that would listen, he would NOT lend anything to AIG and Paulson, beginning meeting on Lehman Bros aid by a consortium stating US would not lend Lehman anything, causing Lehman collapse, to then as stated above then after collapse lend Lehman 160 billion and on and on ... while most will not follow much of any of this , summarizing again, the clear picture detailed in this article and above and for the past year indicates NO ONE Minding the store, no one knowing what is occurring and including Pres/s Bush43, Obama44 etc etc ...
and NO discussion as yet as to what is actually occurring ... Little Lupe Water Mellon IX 69.121.221.97 (talk) 04:18, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Correcting AIG Loan info 

message: I added the NPOV tag to the top of the article. I appears to me that some editors are using this article as a forum to portray him in a poor light. This section has a misleading title and this section is just a bunch of quotes intended to make him look bad. --JHP (talk) 00:52, 19 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Not sure I am seeing your perspective. The section on the views he has expressed as Secy of the Treasury if anything is just too short. His public statements are an important part of his record in his role at Treasury and are relevant within an encyclopdia.--Utahredrock (talk) 08:47, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

text: What exactly was being disputed here? Those sections no longer exists. If no one objects without stating specifically his/her reasons, I'm removing the NPOV tag for the time being. Ethereal (talk) 06:12, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Added NPOV tag 

message: A section is needed on how the Paulson plan morphed in to a bank nationalization plan . . . or whatever title we want to use for this.--Utahredrock (talk) 09:05, 19 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bank [partial] nationalization section needed 

message: I think this is misleading... grave mistake? crisis ensued... this is not encyclopediactic —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.69.243.114 (talk) 05:28, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Crisis ensued 

message: Deleted last sentence for flagrant cheerleading. ("He is considered someone who can convince... to think beyond the bottom line"). --NCDane (talk) 17:36, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deletion 

message: First of all, Wikinvest cannot be used as a source, let alone for a biography. I removed the following:
*An investigation into whether the creators of these debts had failed to disclose their underlying risk—likely in civil damage suits arising out of AIG's failure—would necessarily involve scrutiny of Paulson's own role. The fact that his sale of his Goldman Sach's interest was tax-deferred, netting him nearly $200 million in tax benefits, resulted in questions about his motives in joining the government.http://www.theracetothebottom.org/executive-comp/henry-paulson-and-government-service-the-ultimate-tax-shelte.html
The first sentence is pure OR, but I removed the second because it has nothing to do with a conflict of interest. If anything, it's the exact opposite. There are ethics laws that state one has to divest one's entire equity stake in a company when assuming an office such as the Secretary of the Treasury, and the proceeds are naturally tax-free. Whether or not he left the firm because of this is pure speculation, and there have been other reports that have said he agreed to take on the role to prepare for an oncoming crisis. Even if it were true, it's still not a conflict of interest, which would exist if he had a financial stake in the firm during his tenure as Secretary. Every executive before him to leave for public office (Robert Rubin, Jon Corzine, etc.) had to sell their shares as well.—DMCer™ 02:29, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Conflicts section 

message: The articles states in one place - "His net worth has been estimated at over US $700 million.[10]"
And in another - "Paulson identified the wide gap between the richest and poorest Americans as an issue on his list of the country's four major long-term economic issues to be addressed, highlighting the issue in one of his first public appearances as Secretary of Treasury.[16]"
So no contradiction there then.  SmokeyTheCat  •TALK• 07:57, 28 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hmm 

message: ??? 140.180.8.187 (talk) 17:32, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: It seems that Paulson never had the slightest connection with the Catholic church.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.178.127.25 (talk) 13:09, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Religion 

message: There appears to be a substantial amount of information missing regarding Paulson's role in the 2008 economic meltdown in the United States. Is this deliberate or unintentional? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.141.245.193 (talk) 08:34, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I have added references from William K Black and Michael Moore that refer to this responsibility, but someone keeps removing them on the basis that they are unencyclopedic Rogpat (talk) 06:06, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: No, the crap about taking a vacation is unencyclopedic. Michael Moore's blog is not a reliable source, and even if it was, a letter to Paulson whining about how the Bush administration investigated his trip to Cuba has no true relevance to Paulson, nor does an essay on how Goldman Sachs misbehaved after Paulson left. Fat&Happy (talk) 14:57, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

text: The Lehman section is absurd, and the ref given is 'ibid' with no link. What's going on? In the meantime I'e added a link to the actual article about the financial crisis (which no one working on this article could even imagine might exist? Really?) and added a POV tag. Either summarize that article (which isn't quite so reality-challenged) here, or just delete the whole thing and let the link to that article stand on its own. I don't care which, but what's currently here is appalling. Flatterworld (talk) 00:30, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: You added a link that nobody else had? Wow! Really? How did that get overlooked? Oh, that's right, it didn't; it was right there in the lead content you deleted. Lead content which may have needed reworking, but which actually mentioned (and was a fairly accurate summary of this article's content about) the events for which he became most notable. But hey, if you've got time to write it better, feel free. Fat&Happy (talk) 01:10, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Responsible for 2008 economic meltdown 

message: If there are to be quotes from the Time article, then they must be scrutinised to ensure that it accurately reflects the whole piece. For the lead, I suggest, no quotes are made. Quotes, per WP:Due weight, may be included in the main body. LessHeard vanU (talk) 10:38, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: There is ZERO reason to put ridiculous statements in the lede - stick to the facts. (There's an epidemic of nasty, POV lede insertions going on at Wikipedia. This is just one more attempt from the usual politicos trying to hijack Wikipedia for their own personal agendas.) Flatterworld (talk) 00:19, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Re article lede and Times "person of the year" and... BLP