Henry Paulson Failure

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Henry Paulson is just a man. A man that was appointed as Treasury Secretary under the Bush administration at a time in The United States recent history that will forever be known as The Great Recession. Henry Paulson was able to achieve two extraordinary things with Congress, the conservatorship of Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac and the Troubled Asset Relief Program (Tarp). These plans of action to help the failing economy by Henry Paulson were not considered lightly, he genuinely tried to come up with solutions with American’s economy as a priority. Henry Paulson was brought up by a father who taught him the value of work and the rewards of a job well done. He attended Dartmouth College. While at Dartmouth he met his wife Wendy. Paulson briefly…show more content…
6, 2008. In an already tumultuous market the preferred stock of the two firms tumbled to below a dollar. September 2008 was the month that saw the fall of many financial institutions. Banks termed too big to fail. Lehman Brothers file bankruptcy, Merrill Lynch was bought out by Bank of America, and AIG, an insurance company that sold insurance to investment banks to cover the downturn of investments, was on the brink of financial distress along with so many other failing financial institutions. Paulson, knowing that something had to be done to stop the fall of the economy, along with Bernanke & Geithner basically went to Congress and asked for 700 billion to bail out banks. This was the creation of TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Project). Paulson was asking Congress to approve a program the size of the entire federal budget (which took around 15 months to prepare) in just a couple of week’s time. All of the big banks participated in TARP. Then came the news of the huge bonuses that the big banks were paying their senior executives. During the interview of Paulson he was asked about the regulation of what was done with the bailout money the banks received. He seemed sincere when he responded “To say I was disappointed is an understatement” (Hank: Five Years from the…show more content…
Paulson believes the GSEs need reform by eliminated their ability to hold mortgages and limiting the mortgages they ensure to first time home owners by the size of the mortgage that Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac can back, borrower income, or both. Most importantly there needs to be no implied government back guarantee to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. His TARP program although unpopular at the time has been credited with preventing another depression. When Obama was elected he appointed Tim Geithner as the Treasury Secretary. Henry Paulson is just a man. Some of the decisions he made affected his own brother who worked at Lehman Brothers in Chicago. He remembered calling his brother to see how he was doing during the chaos and how touched he was when his brother voiced his concerned for him. During his recount of that moment I could see that he was truly a man who held high family values. I believe that the decisions made by Henry Paulson were made with best intentions and the most knowledgeable data at the time they were
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