I always wondered why Hank Paulson stammers and I think I know why. On all the Sunday morning shows, Paulson said that he hates to put the US taxpayer in this position and that this plan sticks in his craw.
'Sticks in my craw', is an idiom that generally means, if a situation or someone's behaviour sticks in your craw, it annoys you, usually because you think it is wrong. It is also in etymology the throat of a bird. Paulson's stammering may therefore be related to the fact that he thinks this plan is wrong and this sticks in his birdie throat. Now with 1 trillion dollars involved, this bird is turning out to be a vulture, ready to swoop down and consume the carcasses of bad debt at the expense of US taxpayers.
1 trillion is a number that was and still is inconceivable. 1 trillion is 1 followed by 12 zeroes or $1,000,000,000,000. That is $3,334.00 for every man, woman, and child in the USA. How many of you can afford this amount, let alone your children and grandchildren.
So as Hank Paulson's craw causes him to stammer, the American taxpayers throats will have a knife stuck to their craw and be forced to swallow a plan that almost assures an infinite cascade of ever increasing debt.
That 1 trillion can be thought of as Hank Paulson being the 1, followed by a whole bunch of zeroes, which would be congress.