Education
Paulson was a champion wrestler and stand-out football player.
He was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma Alpha Epsilon and he was an All-Ivy, All-East, and honorable mention All American as an offensive lineman.
Paulson was a champion wrestler and stand-out football player.
He was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma Alpha Epsilon and he was an All-Ivy, All-East, and honorable mention All American as an offensive lineman.
Before becoming Treasury Secretary, he was required to liquidate all of his stock holdings in Goldman Sachs, valued at over $600 million in 2006, in order to comply with conflict-of-interest regulations.
Paulson was known to have persuaded President George W. Bush to allow him to spearhead U.S.-China relations and initiated and led the U.S.-China Strategic Economic Dialogue, a forum and mechanism under which the two countries addressed global areas of immediate and long-term strategic and economic interest. In spring 2007, Paulson warned an audience at the Shanghai Futures Exchange that China needed to free up capital markets to avoid losing potential economic growth, saying: "An open, competitive, and liberalized financial market can effectively allocate scarce resources in a manner that promotes stability and prosperity far better than governmental intervention." In September 2008, in light of the economic crisis experienced by the U.S. in the interim, Chinese leaders evidenced hesitation to follow Paulson's advice.