Henry Merritt "Hank" Paulson Jr. (62) is the current United States Treasury Secretary and a member of the International Monetary Fund Board of Governors. Paulson, who hired on at Goldman Sachs investment bank in 1974 and climbed the ranks until becoming the bank’s CEO in 1999 and maintained that position until being appointed by President GW Bush to head the U.S. Treasury in May, 2006. Paulson was sworn in as the 87th U.S. Treasury Secretary on July 10, 2006.

After receiving a masters degree in business administration from the Harvard School of Business in 1970, Paulson became staff assistant to the assistant secretary of defense at the Pentagon from 1970 to 1972. Paulson then worked for the Nixon administration as an assistant to John Ehrlichman from 1972 to 1973.

During his long career at Goldman Sachs, Paulson has accumulated a net worth estimated at over $700 million. In a July, 2008 article, The London Daily Telegraph reported that, "Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson has intimate relations with the Chinese elite, dating from his days at Goldman Sachs when he visited the country more than 70 times."

Paulson has been at the Treasury helm throughout the recent phase of U.S. economic reorganization that began with the Bear Stearns investment bank "bailout" in March, 2008 and continues to present. With the passage of H.R. 1424 on Oct. 3, 2008, Paulson became the manager of the United States Emergency Economic Stabilization fund. He is currently in the process of "nationalizing" the private debt of banks that have engaged in reckless lending and speculation practices by purchasing government-owned stock with the $700 billion authorized by Congress.

From wikipedia: Paulson, an avid "nature lover," has been a member of The Nature Conservancy for decades and was the organization’s board chairman and co-chair of its Asia-Pacific Council. In that capacity, Paulson worked with former President of the People’s Republic of China Jiang Zemin to preserve the Tiger Leaping Gorge in Yunnan province.

Paulson is also on the Board of Directors of the Peregrine Fund; was the founding Chairman of the Advisory Board of the School of Economics and Management of Tsinghua University in Beijing; and previously served as chairman of the influential trade group, the Financial Services Forum.

Notable among the members of Bush’s cabinet, Paulson has said he is a strong believer in the effect of human activity on global warming and advocates immediate action to decrease this effect.

As an environmental leader and philanthropist, Paulson, while at Goldman Sachs, oversaw the corporate donation of 680,000 forested acres on the Chilean side of Tierra del Fuego, which led to criticisms from Goldman Sachs shareholder groups. He further donated US$100 million of assets from his wealth to conservancy causes. He pledged his entire fortune for the same purpose at death. He has also been considered someone who can influence world and business leaders to think beyond the bottom line.

Paulson’s three immediate predecessors as CEO of Goldman Sachs—Jon Corzine, Stephen Friedman, and Robert Rubin—each left the bank to serve in government: Corzine as a U.S. Senator (and current New Jersey governor), Friedman as chairman of the National Economic Council (later chairman of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board) under President George W. Bush and; Rubin as both chairman of the NEC and later Treasury Secretary under President Bill Clinton.

"The most dangerous thing that could be done would be to place the merchandising of money in the hands of the national government. Such a step would give the internationalists their FINAL weapon to destroy property and personal rights of loyal Americans. The internationalists are secretly seeking to make just such a move at this time. Watch their movements carefully and be on the alert that they do not put over legislation which would nationalize the banks, as they call it—in other words, make every bank in the United States a branch office of the Federal Government."