My other questions for him.

What’s wrong with lowering the interest rate to 4% as Jim Cramer suggested? This somehow makes sense to me.

What does he mean by a “corporate republic”

If he were President who would he pick to be his Secretary of the Treasury besides himself? Who would be on his economic team?

What does he mean when he says “treat banking like a utility”

the reason it makes sense to me is not setting those who did not make mistakes and those who did whether purposely or not against one another

You said this during your interview with Bill Moyers

“JAMES GALBRAITH: That’s no doubt true. First of all, the crisis had been developing for a year. When it broke, he sent up a three-page bill to Congress. Many people said that’s a power grab. My view was it was a punt. It said to the Congress, “You take this ball. You write the legislation,” which Barney Frank and the other leadership of the Congress actually did do. And they came back. And eventually they passed a bill. And Paulson has been improvising ever since. He’s done a number of things that actually I was recommending as early as the 25th of September in the “Washington Post”. Guarantee all deposits in the banking system. Support the commercial paper market. Take out equity investment in the banks, effectively partially nationalizing them. All of these things which were unimaginable in mid-September are now policy, even though they weren’t, strictly speaking, part of the bill.”

What would you have done differently if you had been in Paulson’s position?

During a Frontline special called “Banking on the Brink” they reported that Former Secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson and Former CEO of Lehman Brothers Dick Fuld were arch enemies when Paulson was CEO of Goldman/Sachs. Do you think there was anything personal in Paulson allowing Lehman Brothers to fail?

What is your opinion about that decision?

Quote also from same NY Times article, link at 95

SEC rules changes allowed self-regulation, increased debt ratio to capital reserve, allowed investment in CDSs, MBSs, credit derivatives, a form of insurance for bond holders, and other exotic instruments.

At that meeting Henry M. Paulson, then CEO of Goldman Sachs, was the force behind the changes and spokesman for the group of investment bankers. The other 4 banks represented were: Morgan Stanly, Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch.

Reference: NY Times, 10/03/2008

(Christy, feel free to edit and condense as you see fit. I have more links that give more background going back to 02/29/2000 if you’re interested.)

Mr. Galbraith, why haven’t we done price discovery on the balance sheets of the investment banks receiving bailout money? The assets can’t be sold unless they have a value attached to them. Lacking that, you don’t even have a starting point for negotiation.

Amy Goodman’s interview with James Galbraith
http://www.democracynow.org/20….._out_banks

the stuff i care most about is: has he caused real harm to people? is he dishonest or manipulative? how does that stack up to the number of people he’s helped and the times he’s been honest even when it wasn’t helpful to him.

that kind of thing…. the character stuff more than the personality stuff if that makes any sense.