Ladies And Gentlemen, Your UberBailout All-Star 2008 Team!

Well, so who's running the $700 billion bailout's funds, anyway? Who's in charge of actually buying up all these craptacular mortgage products?

Why, the same Wall Street managers who got us into this mess!

BlackRock Inc., Pacific Investment Management Co. and Legg Mason Inc. informally advised the U.S. Treasury in the days leading up to passage of its $700 billion financial-rescue plan and will seek to manage some of the assets, according to people familiar with the matter.

The Treasury will choose five to 10 money managers to help it acquire troubled assets from financial firms, officials said today. In the past few weeks, Treasury officials sought out executives at BlackRock, Pimco and Legg Mason's Western Asset Management unit for guidance, said the people, who asked not to be named because the discussions were private.

``It would make sense for the Treasury to go with a company that has expertise in a lot of different asset classes, like BlackRock or Pimco,'' said James Ellman, president of San Francisco-based Seacliff Capital LLC, manager of about $200 million in financial stocks.

President George W. Bush today signed into law a measure authorizing the government to buy distressed assets from financial institutions buried by record home foreclosures. The program, formed after a year of sustained bond-market losses and stepped-up withdrawals by investors, could help boost revenue for the managers the government selects.

The Treasury's first attempt to hold an auction to buy troubled assets from financial firms will take at least four weeks to set up. Managers will be evaluated based on the cost and scope of services they offer. The Treasury is still working out a conflict-of-interest policy and details for guidelines on compensation.

So yes, the government is going to pay the foxes to watch the henhouse. And of course Congress thought this was a good idea. They might even make money on doing this.

Great way to do business, yes? No chance of cronyism or abuse here, not with billions of taxpayer dollars at stake, right? Course not.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is hiring as many as 10 asset-management firms to join the lawyers and bankers he is recruiting to jumpstart the government's new $700 billion bank-rescue program.

The Treasury began implementing the plan within an hour of the House of Representatives vote giving Paulson the extraordinary powers he had sought to combat the U.S. financial crisis. Paulson is seeking to assemble a team to determine which toxic securities to target, how to value them and how to arrange purchases.

``This is something that, for a typical company, would take no less than five years,'' said Lynn Turner, a former chief accountant at the Securities and Exchange Commission. ``Anyone who thinks they can do this in two weeks is insane.''

Already, BlackRock Inc., Pacific Investment Management Co. and Legg Mason Inc. are seeking to become money managers for the program, people familiar with the matter said. The three firms have been informally advising the Treasury as it negotiated the bailout package with Congress, the people said.

Ed Forst, the former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. executive Paulson hired to head the transition team, started work last week and is charged with helping establish the new Office of Financial Stability.

``Paulson did not want to lose precious days waiting,'' said Howard Glaser, a former chief legal adviser of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Treasury officials said Forst, who was given a contract worth $5,000, is likely to stay for several weeks before returning to Harvard University, where he sits on the board that oversees the $34.9 billion endowment.

I cannot wait to be rid of these guys. Of course...I'm sure the guys that will replace them will be honorable...But suck it up! The US government's in the hedge fund business now, and it'll be run with the same attention to detail that our government is known for!