The Neel Kashkari Washington Post Mortem
For those who may not recall, Neel Kashkari was the special assistant to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, and was featured in several CSPAN Congressional appearances where he discussed TARP and how the $700 Billion in funds was to be spent. Here’s a quick flashback:
Kashkari has since “resigned” and moved to a SHTF location somewhere in the secluded woods of the Sierra Nevadas in Nevada County, CA. We are of the opinion that Mr. Kashkari may know that a complete meltdown of the system is imminent, so he has preemptively bugged out of the city.
Tom of the North, editor of Outside the (Carboard) Box, examines a recent Washington Post puff piece about Mr. Kashkari by taking the article line by line and adding his own views and commentary. Tom points out the ridiculousness of it all in Extreme Makeover: WaPo Edition. We urge our readers to visit OTCB and read the article in full for some truly excellent intellectual entertainment!
We wanted to post some choice excerpts from the article, but it simply would not do it justice, so click the link below and head on over there for the full read. It will definitely be worth your time.
*Editor’s note from Tom: Today’s post contains an abundance of graphic & unseemly language
Click here to visit OTCB and read the full article - Extreme Makeover: WaPo Edition…
Author: Mac Slavo
Date: December 10th, 2009
Visit the Author's Website: http://www.SHTFplan.com/
December 10th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
Okay, Kashkari doesn’t get a free pass for TARP. $700 Billion dollar bail out now seems like small potatoes compared to the ever increasing into the double-digit trillion dollar Federal deficit bubble. I too am so disgusted and angry about the bankers, who profited from bad decisions, being bailed out by the taxpayers (was it the taxpayer’s money in actuality? The $700 billion is funny money just printed. It’s just added to the Federal deficit that can never really be paid back). I cannot get too angry specifically at Kashkari though. As an “assistant” anything you take all the blame if something fails and if it is successful your boss gets the credit. Paulson did not know if TARP would work so he assigned an underling to take on the task of creating the program to distance his name from it.
As far as his cabin in the mountains…good for him. It’s a beautiful and secure looking retreat. I wish I had such a sanctuary. It would be a dream come true. I cannot waste energy with anger or envy towards someone else’s success as I see Kashkari as the last administrations “fall guy” on the bank bailouts. I’m envisioning light around him and his family. May we all focus our attention on our own survival when the shtf. I’m grateful…in a way…for the bailout. Without it we would be experiencing economic collapse right now, and I for one was not prepared at ALL. Still how prepared can one be for economic collapse. Gezz! Seeing what happened last Spring and Summer helped me to wake up to where all of this is leading us (probable result based on reason as I’m not an economist). The bailout has given all of us, including Mr. Kashkari, time to prepare for economic collapse (hyper inflation scenario), civil disorder. TARP was never intended to fix anything. It’s result was to buy a little more time. It makes me nervous when I read that Mr. Celente predict maybe a currency crisis in January. I wish and hope that I have another year or two to store supplies ahead of hyper inflation. Right now I share a rental townhouse with one other man. My plan is to share with 4 people, thus further driving down our monthly living expenses and sharing the commons. Group living with friends, family, or anyone you trust and get along with will be one coping strategy with hyper inflation and civil unrest. You want to keep your living expenses inline with what can be paid with unemployment compensation for just in case you loose your job. If you remain employed then you’ll just benefit from keeping your living expenses low and having extra money to buy provisions to buffer against hyper inflation.
Back on topic, seems that Mr. Kashkari is happy to be out of DC. By the looks of it he never really wanted to be there in the first place.
December 10th, 2009 at 1:13 pm
He just needed a prominent bit of ink on his resume - he is now working for PIMCO -
http://www.businessinsider.com/neel-kashkari-to-pimco-2009-12
I read the WP article and thought I could change my mind about the guy, maybe he was just sucked in, saw how bad it was, but now he heads off to PIMCO, right… obviously still has the GS mentality
PS - did anyone see where he admitted they guessed a number for the TARP, came out of thin air for 700 Billion…
December 10th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
Greg, no. This was pre-PR for Kashkari’s PIMCO appointment. Feeling manipulated yet? You should.