Irresponsible?

The Financial Times (UK) has done the digging -- and points out a reasonable question: where was Secretary Henry Paulsen when the trading of junk mortgages he now condemns as "irresponsible" was going on? What they learned about the former chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs:

Until May 2006, when he was nominated by George W. Bush as the Treasury secretary, he was running an investment bank that was doing quite a bit of this slicing and dicing.

According to page 20 the Goldman Sachs 10-Q regulatory filing for the first quarter of 2006: "During the three months ended February 2006 and February 2005, the firm securitised $19.25bn and $15.24bn, respectively, of financial assets, including $18.15bn and $14.43bn, respectively, of residential mortgage loans and securities." ...

Mr Paulson now declares himself shocked, shocked that structured finance was going on on Wall Street but he was there at the time, and the $18.7m bonus he received for the first half of 2006 presumably reflected it.

And this guy wants Congress to give him unregulated authority to play with $700 billion of our money?

For starters, he could donate that $18.7 million bonus. But really -- why is Congress even listening to this guy?

H/t Just World News. Go over there and scroll down to read about the price China seems to be asking for helping the U.S. economy -- how about Taiwan?