Henry “Hank” Paulson, Bush nominee for the post of Treasury Secretary, has evoked interesting reaction in the media. Barring the disclosure of some unforeseen scandal, Paulson, at present Chairman of Goldman Sachs, is likely to win Senate confirmation easily. But can he break the partisan logjam that grips Washington? The answer to that will say much more about George W. Bush than Hank Paulson, says Business Week.
“Paulson isn’t giving up a $38.3 million pay package — the most lucrative on Wall Street — to be a mere cheerleader, however. When he was first approached about the job six or seven weeks ago by the White House staff, he declined, according to a former Bush Administration official. Still, the crucial question is whether any Treasury Secretary, even without potential constraints, can make much difference in two and a half years, the remaining time in Bush’s presidency.
“William Niskanen, chairman of the libertarian Cato Institute and a former economic aide to President Ronald Reagan, says it’s not too late to rejuvenate a stagnant economic agenda, although time is growing short.
“The person who helped convince Paulson to change his mind was Joshua Bolten, a Goldman alumnus whom Bush recently named White House chief of staff. He helped persuade Paulson to meet with Bush on Saturday, May 20. The President told Paulson that he really wanted a ‘very senior person’ from Wall Street in the position, according to a second source familiar with the situation.
“This source says that Bush said he wanted Paulson to play a broader role in his Administration than previous Treasury secretaries had. He will be Bush’s ‘principal adviser’ on economic matters. Paulson felt he couldn’t turn down the President’s request to serve his country, the source said.
While The Independent of London described Paulson’s selection as a notable coup for the Bush administraion to revive his flagging administration.
“All the signs were that he was initially reluctant to make the move to Washington, and it wouldn’t just have been because of the risk he is joining at the fag-end of an administration that has little remaining political capital.
“He was reluctant enough to uproot from his native Illinois in 1994 after being appointed to the No 2 job at Goldman Sachs. Before that, he and his wife, Wendy, had built a life on a five-acre site carved out of the family farm, where the couple raised raccoons, alligators and turtles among a menagerie of other animals, as well as two children. Now he will also have to forego the bird-watching rambles the couple take in New York’s Central Park before he heads into the office in the morning.
“In a parallel life, he would have been a park ranger, he says. Indeed, he has indulged his love of wildlife even while climbing to the top of Goldman. He will often show off birds of prey in the company’s offices, and harangue colleagues and business associates into donating to the Nature Conservancy, the environmental group of which he is vice-chairman. Having turned 60 earlier this year, his thoughts were already turning to a retirement which would probably have included ploughing his fortune – which was augmented by $38m (£20m) in pay and bonuses last year – into additional charity work.
“His green credentials have led Mr Paulson into controversy recently. Goldman shareholders criticised the bank’s donation of 680,000 acres of ecologically sensitive land on the Chilean island of Tierra del Fuego to the Wildlife Conservation Society, a charity to which Mr Paulson’s son Merritt is an adviser.”
Paulson’s profile appears in Globe and Mail.
So did Paulson make a wise decision? As Mahatma Gandhi once famously said: “There is more wildlife in big powerful cities than in the jungles now.”
Swaraaj Chauhan describes his two-decade-long stint as a full-time journalist as eventful, purposeful, and full of joy and excitement. In 1993 he could foresee a different work culture appearing on the horizon, and decided to devote full time to teaching journalism (also, partly, with a desire to give back to the community from where he had enriched himself so much.)
Alongside, he worked for about a year in 1993 for the US State Department’s SPAN magazine, a nearly five-decade-old art and culture monthly magazine promoting US-India relations. It gave him an excellent opportunity to learn about things American, plus the pleasure of playing tennis in the lavish American embassy compound in the heart of New Delhi.
In !995 he joined WWF-India as a full-time media and environment education consultant and worked there for five years travelling a great deal, including to Husum in Germany as a part of the international team to formulate WWF’s Eco-tourism policy.
He taught journalism to honors students in a college affiliated to the University of Delhi, as also at the prestigious Indian Institute of Mass Communication where he lectured on “Development Journalism” to mid-career journalists/Information officers from the SAARC, African, East European and Latin American countries, for eight years.
In 2004 the BBC World Service Trust (BBC WST) selected him as a Trainer/Mentor for India under a European Union project. In 2008/09 He completed another European Union-funded project for the BBC WST related to Disaster Management and media coverage in two eastern States in India — West Bengal and Orissa.
Last year, he spent a couple of months in Australia and enjoyed trekking, and also taught for a while at the University of South Australia.
Recently, he was appointed as a Member of the Board of Studies at Chitkara University in Chandigarh, a beautiful city in North India designed by the famous Swiss/French architect Le Corbusier. He also teaches undergraduate and postgraduate students there.
He loves trekking, especially in the hills, and never misses an opportunity to play a game of tennis. The Western and Indian classical music are always within his reach for instant relaxation.
And last, but not least, is his firm belief in the power of the positive thought to heal oneself and others.