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U.S. Treasury Secretary Paulson changes tack on financial rescue
And the American public responds with thinly-veiled anger and sarcasm.
The original story is posted here:
Among the 2000+ posted comments to the story link listed above, the one I liked best and found most apt for the holiday season approaching is this one, from a poster named "justaguymyself,"
"Well, I just got off the phone with Santa, and things are looking grim up at the North Pole this year.
It seems the reindeer had the idea of starting their own "Polar Wealth Fund" sometime last year.
They invested heavily in EBS's (Elven-backed securities), and were promised they should be making a tidy sum for a good long time.
Unfortunately, they came to find out that the Elves had actually become quite concerned about the security of the underlying assets.
They had been purchasing SDS's, (Santa Default Swaps), to protect their investors, but eventually it seemed to represent what appeared to be an opportunity.
The plan was simple. Buy up SDS's, then carefully spread a few rumours that Santa was not "real" to a few of the children - just enough to trigger the default Claus.
After that, they would collect the insurance, and cover any losses on the EBS side of the business.
Apparently something went terribly wrong - and they have no clue how to fix it."
If one wants some clues on how to fix what is going on in the economy, then check out ALL the comments posted on Marketwatch.com.



Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (2)
at 11:03 on November 13th, 2008
Paulson ought to hand the baton to someone else.
at 16:36 on November 13th, 2008
Thanks for your comment, Fairbanks. I was not trying to blame Secy. Paulson by mentioning all of these inflammatory and funny (and some of them really are funny!) comments that appear the MarketWatch.com website. The stock market did not take a huge dive again on Thursday--if it had, people would been really angry at Paulson today! Secy. Paulson has failed to use his private sector experience well as a public official...except for the fact that now, this recent turn "to the consumer" is a better sign. But he has only six weeks left in the fiscal year. And apologies to government experts, but I don't know if he is in the job from Jan 1 2009 to Inauguration day for Barack Obama? Can anyone inform me on the timetable of progression for the Bush cabinet? In other words, Paulson may be the Secy. of the Treasury until late January 2009.