Paulson tries to wildly justify the financial bailout

From Ronald Orol at WSJ.com (hat tip: Drudge)...

Facing criticism on Capitol Hill, former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson on Wednesday defended his decision to complete a $182 billion bailout of American International Group Inc., arguing that the unemployment rate would have risen easily to 25% without the bailout. "If the system had collapsed millions more in savings would have been lost," said Paulson, who was Treasury Secretary at the time of the bailout, at a hearing. "Industrial companies of all size would not have been able to raise funding and they would not have been able to pay employees, this would have rippled through the economy."

Actually, Paulson asserts 25%-- not argues. He makes an argument-- albeit highly speculative-- that things would have been worse. He wants us to believe it would have taken more than two years to fix all of this without a bail-out. I'd love to hear him "argue" that!