Select group of former government officials set to profit from current economic woes

ERIC LIPTON and DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK report in the New York Times that "... former senior government officials who were central players in the savings and loan bailout (Resolution Trust Corporation) of the 1990s are seeking to capitalize on the latest economic meltdown ... as private lawyers, investors and lobbyists...these former officials are helping their clients get a piece of the bailout money or the chance to buy, at fire-sale prices, some of the bank assets taken over by the federal government...L. William Seidman, the first chairman of the R.T.C., (is)...sharing ideas with Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. and ... President-elect Barack Obama — even while they are separately directing investors or banks on how to best profit from this advice...The busiest money-making arena so far... is in helping distressed banks line up cash infusions from the Treasury...The biggest profits will ... be made ...by those who ... benefit from what could turn into one of the greatest fire sales of bad debt and bank assets in American history."