From Foreign Policy Blog:
Via FP contributor Ashby Monk, here's an interesting story from Bloomberg News that hasn't gotten much attention. It seems that Russia tried to use its vast financial holdings and conspire with China to create "economic disruptions" in the United States in 2008. An astonishing scoop, if true.
The source of the tale is Hank Paulson, the former U.S. Treasury secretary whose memoir, On the Brink, is coming out soon.
Says Bloomberg:
Read more ....The Russians made a “top-level approach” to the Chinese “that together they might sell big chunks of their GSE holdings to force the U.S. to use its emergency authorities to prop up these companies,” Paulson said, referring to the acronym for government sponsored entities.
My Comment: Quoting Hank Paulson on this issue is like catching a pyromaniac with an empty gas can and matches and asking him if he was the one who started the fire down the street. As much as we may like to look for a boogey man as the main cause for our problems, the truth is that for the US, many of our economic problems can be traced back directly to the steps of Congress and the White House.