Nothing 'punitive' or banks won't participate

The New York Times reported Monday, “Mr. Paulson said that he was concerned that imposing limits on the compensation of executives could discourage companies from participating in the program.

“’If we design it so it’s punitive and so institutions aren’t going to participate, this won’t work the way we need it to work,’ Mr. Paulson said...” [1]

And

"Bernanke wants government [taxpayer] to pay significant premium over current "firesale" price for troubled assets. Specifically, he wants to pay close to the "hold-to-maturity" price, which he argues is much higher than the mark-to-market firesale price. Bernanke and Paulson believes this is necessary to get banks to participate." [2]

Apart from feathering the next of his colleagues, don't you get the impression that Paulson is hiding something? After all the Paulson bailout plan has been extended to the financial securities of foreign banks in the US. I suspect that the US Government has placed some form of pressure on them to purchase subprime collateralised debt obligations and other dodgy financial securities in the first instance (Just as the Bush administration did to local authorities in US states.) And we know that a high degree of fraud has been involved in selling such 'products'.



[1] Paulson warns: No limits on CEO pay
By Barry Grey. 23 September 2008
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/sep2008/ceo-s23.shtml

[2] US Treasury Bailout Auction Scam and How To Stop It
Politics / Credit Crisis Bailouts Sep 23, 2008 -
By: Mike_Shedlock
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article6429.html