The American Spectator

The Spectacle Blog

If you're Hank Paulson and the emergency is the looming insolvency of the US financial system, you call candidate Barack Obama, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, and Robert Rubin.

Nomi Prins went through Paulson's phone records for the months of the financial crisis, and reports her findings in the Daily Beast. The most intriguing fact is the frighteningly small number of people Paulson talked to on the phone during the key moments of the crisis: Bush, Geithner, Bernanke, Obama, McCain, the big investment banks, and precious few others. And remember, Paulson does not use email, so other than face to face, his phone conversations were his only outside communication.

Is it any wonder that the financial industry crumbled, when such enormous power was concentrated in such a small and isolated group?