Why Are Former Goldman Sachs Executives Overseeing the Wall Street Bailout?

My life is complete! I have lived long enough to see administrative incompetence on a scale by which the entire Carter Administration pales in comparison!

In a move comparable to appointing John Gotti as the director of the Witness Protection Program, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has appointed former Goldman Sachs Vice President Neel Kashkari as head of the newly created Office of Financial Stability. In recent weeks Paulson has also appointed former Goldman Sachs institutional bankers Dan Jester and Ken Wilson to key oversight positions relating to the $700 billion dollar Wall Street CARE package signed into law last Friday.

I have to pause to consider the fact that Paulson himself is a former Goldman Sachs executive. Do I detect the scent of conflict of interest in the air?

If you have a more reasonable explanation, I would love to hear it.

Should you need further proof that Paulson's appointment of Kashkari is of questionable integrity, consider that Steve Adamske, a spokesman for Rep. Barney Frank (D for Doofus-Massachusetts), said that Kashkari is "very knowledgeable and very smart."

Knowledgeable and smart concerning what? Avoiding a Grand Jury? Fiddling while Rome and the rest of Europe are being dragged into the financial meltdown that was caused, in part, by the financial shenanigans that went on at Goldman Sachs?

Since Rep. Frank's committee is responsible for overseeing the nation's financial interests at the national level, I must consider the possibility that the above mentioned appointments may have been made in order to obscure the issue of who was sleeping on the job while the fat cats were walking away with millions of dollars in salary and bonuses while their companies wound up in federal receivership.

If the above doesn't send you looking for tar, feathers, and a rope, consider the following.

On September 22^nd, one week after AIG was the beneficiary of an $85 billion dollar loan from the feds, executives of AIG blew $440,000 for a corporate retreat at the St. Regis Monarch Beach resort in Los Angeles! If you don't believe me, check out this copy of the hotel bill!