Paulson Asked "When Will We Hit Bottom?"

Hey RSE readers and bloggers, how do you read this? Take a listen, or read the transcript, or both. Odd, the man is really flustered. Sounds to me like he's saying there is no bottom, its a bottomless abyss - the game is over - they've abandoned the economy, because they know there's no way to rescue it. So what do they do?! They pile up cash for themselves and sprint for the exits, and leave us to cope as we can. They are setting themselves up to come out of this depression as the wealthiest, most powerful individuals, in the postmodern economic world. I am very interested in your take on this. Am I overreacting? Paulson sure sounds uncomfortable. from blogger Amerocan: "They knew the impact on the economy was inevitable. The financial system is stable yet credit is not flowing. The financial system has been shored up, it is the economy that is screwed! The financial system (banks) made off with the loot. How hard can it be to lend people more than they can afford only to get them to bail you out so that you can lend them more? But oh wait, what's that, you're not lending any more? We gave you trillions so you could keep the economy going and keep us all employed but instead you used the money for your own purposes and now the economy is screwed." transcript

QUOTE Investor With Glasses: "Mr. Secretary, when do you expect our economy to finally hit bottom *crowd laughs* so that we can begin the process of recovery?" Paulson: "Huh-hah...yeah...that is, uh, ah, I appreciate the straight blunt talk an-an-and I tend to be blunt but treasury secretaries can't be that blunt so, so I, I, w-w-what I, w-what I will say to you is, is you get two things here which is a bit of a challenge in communicating t-to the American people *brief pause* because there's the financial system and an-and the stability of the financial system and then there's the economy. And, when we went to Congress to talk about the financial system an-and the crisis we-we were we were facing, the um, trying to communicate that and communicate to the American people, that we saw what had happened, what was happening in the financial system was gonna have a big impact on the economy...and we could see that, and, uh, an-and knew that, that, it was inevitably gonna have that impact but it woulda been much worse, and it would be much worse if, if we, if you know, if if if the financial system's not stable. Now, i-i-in terms of your specific question, I don't have an answer for you there, *crowd begins to laugh* other than, o-other than to say, that which is, w-w-which is where "Duke" started off, uh which is, you know, ou-our economy, you know, we're a strong entrepreneurial nation, we're a rich nation, we have the resources, we have the tools, uh, t-to deal with this, my focus is really on financial system eh-eh-eh stability, getting credit flowing again, because that's gonna be the key. When, i-i-it, as, as that happens, you know getting back to Brian's question when the banks are lending, when credit is flowing, when the, the credit markets away from the banks are working, we will, w-we will have a stronger economy and and housing p-p-p you know housing prices uh, uh stabilize. And so I think it, i-it's gonna w-we're gonna have some challenging months here but w-w-we're gonna work through this but I can't give you a...a...uh...a-a date." UNQUOTE