Paulson must go!

It is clear that the Treasury is flailing.

Mr. Paulson should go. He has let the country down badly.

In March the coming crisis was forseeable, yet when it hit in

September, Mr Paulson and his colleagues did not have a contingency

plan in place. The Treasury was dominated by Wall Street alumni so

when they did begin crisis planning, groupthink concentrated their

minds on saving Wall Street. Their blindness prevented them from

seeing that saving Wall Street led through saving Main Street.

They really need to keep the mortgages whole possibly through a widely

available shared appreciation plan, then the whole pyramid of phatom

securities would also be made whole.

Finally Secretary Paulson's recent refusal to consider taking steps to

aid homeowners in defiance of Congressional legislation renders him

unfit for office.

He must resign immediately.


Sent to the New York Times