Every day brings more bad news about the financial markets. Consider the following: retailers crashing; auto industry near collapse; foreclosures mounting; personal savings eroding; jobless claims hit 7-year high; world stock markets in complete turmoil; and on and on and on.
American Express turns into a bank holding entity so it can gain access to some of the billions in bailout funds! And, AIG says the original $125 billion in loans just isn't enough to straighten them out so the government reworks the package and increases the amount to $150 billion!!
But the worst news of all hits today. The Washington Post reports that "no formal action has been taken to fill the independent oversight posts established by Congress when it approved the bailout to prevent corruption and government waste"!
Frankly, I find this to be absolutely astounding! Who in their right mind would think it appropriate to hand over in excess of a trillion dollars of government money without anyone designated to check on what's happening and report to the American people. Secretary Paulsen may be brilliant (although I have my doubts about that), but someone should be keeping tabs on what he is doing and how he is making his decisions.
As I said in an earlier post, what we have here is a credibility crisis! Until our leaders do something to restore the credibility of this process it has little chance of succeeding. High credibility wins! But, a lack of credibility usually leads to disastrous results.
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