Until this week closing a deal had never been a problem for Hank Paulson, the former Goldman Sachs chief executive turned US Treasury secretary. But in his effort to compel a stunned Congress to give him blanket authority to use $700bn (￡380bn, €480bn) in taxpayers' money to rescue Wall Street and the US economy, he turned to desperate measures, self-mockingly going on bended knee and genuflecting before Nancy Pelosi, the House Speaker, who in turn joked: “I didn't know you were Catholic.” (Paulson is not, in fact. He is a devout, teetotalling Christian Scientist.)
自擁有70年歷史的JP摩根(JP Morgan)出手平息1907年的紐約金融危機(Bankers Panic)以來，甚至是自美國第一任財政部長亞歷山大?漢密爾頓(Alexander Hamilton) 1792年通過借款購買政府債券以穩定美國各銀行以來，沒有一個人曾試圖動用如此強大的金融火力來結束一場危機。美國《新聞周刊》(Newsweek)雜志視此舉具有史無前例的奪權性質，把保爾森作為封面人物，稱他為“亨利國王”(King Henry)。