Danny Schechter - ColdType

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who ran the War for the Iraqi Freedom Coalition Media Center
in Doha, Qatar in 2003, was also for a time the key Bushevik
commissar at the Working Group. He was an aide to Henry
Paulson. Wilkinson, now a PR man representing banks opposing
a proposed new consumer protection agency, was also
an organizer of the rowdy group of Congressional aides who
stopped the presidential recount in the Miami Dade County
Building in the 200 election. He was a leader of what was later
called the “Brooks Brothers Riot.”
New York magazine suggested there might be a conspiratorial
explanation:
Of course, the squishy “consult” language has long had conspiracy
theorists speculating that it’s just a backroom market-rigging
cabal for the Establishment. Or, you could think of
it as the Wall Street Superfriends, equipped with X-ray vision
to see deep into our financial malaise, and magic lassos to
jury-rig the markets back together.
It seemed difficult to find out what these people really do.
But then I found a website, Gaming the Market (http://www.
gamingthemarket.com/), that offers more insight. One of its
reports asked:
Ever notice how official speeches to prop up the US capital
markets are timed right before a massive sell off? How about
those last hour rallies when the market looks really bad? Let’s
explore just what the Plunge Protection Team can do. For
starters, the White House came out with the trumpets to kick
off the open of 2008. The Dow then peeled off 600 points
making it the worst January open the stock market has ever
seen–ever. Not bad for a “strong and solid” market! On Jan.
4th President Bush said the following:
“I had quite a fascinating and productive meeting with the
President’s Working Group on Financial Markets, chaired by
Secretary Paulson. I want to thank the members for working
diligently to monitor our capital market system, our financial