Bailout

Bush Bailout Architect Lands On His Feet -- Helping Private Clients Adjust To Brave New World Of Finance

Zachary Roth | March 30, 2009, 1:29PM

We should have seen this one coming -- government officials who helped respond to the financial crisis, now cashing in by helping private sector clients "navigate the new world of finance."

That's what David Nason, a former assistant treasury secretary under Hank Paulson will be doing for clients of Promontary Financial Group, which he's joining as a managing director, reports the Wall Street Journal (sub. req.). Nason, who had a major hand in drawing up Treasury's bailout plan last fall, "is expected to advise big financial institutions on everything from how to participate in the government's rescue programs to meeting regulatory requirements."

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Henry Paulson

Hank Paulson To Write Goldman/Bush/Credit Default Swap Tell-All

Moe Tkacik | March 26, 2009, 6:48PM

Hank Paulson has a book deal. And if there is demand in the marketplace for yet another score-settling insider account by a flawed but well-meaning Bush appointee, we guess it is Hank. Since the centimillionaire is generously refusing an advance and donating the proceeds to a hotline that helps homeowners prevent foreclosure -- an endeavor he did not have much time for as Treasury Secretary -- we'll put a copy on hold. But a Hank Paulson book is veritably guaranteed to disappoint, right? Or should we hedge that statement?

After all, Paulson is a competitive guy, and the "Bush Administration Treasury Secretary Tell-All" genre has formidable competition in The Price Of Loyalty, Ron Suskind's account of Paul O'Neill's tenure in that post -- plus Paulson has the advantages of having presided over the spectacular financial crisis that begat the current depression and Goldman Sachs. Paulson doesn't seem to have pent-up literary ambitions -- instituting the short selling ban was his equivalent to "burning books," he told the Post -- but he will undoubtedly submit himself to the editorial judgments of his daughter, a journalist who writes about public education. And in interviews, as his willingness to admit to burning books suggests, Paulson has seemed less of an ideologue than an ambitious business man who had never given ideology much thought -- so we won't be getting Ten Minutes From Normal here. (Although it would be awesome if he ripped off that title.)

On the other hand...

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