TOO bad Hank Paulson didn’t wait another 24 hours before announcing his it’ll-never-happen plan for changing oversight of the financial industry, and, by the way, permanently altering capitalism.

Then he could have ended his grand proposal with the words “April Fools.”

In case you missed the announcement by the Treasury Secretary yesterday (or the numerous leaks over the weekend intended to cause great public excitement) Paulson put on his carpenter’s belt and fixed the barn door.

The livestock, of course, left the premises a long time ago.

And all the poor little lambs who unwittingly walked into the great real estate bubble were still being slaughtered even as the former Goldman Sachs chairman outlined how he’d make Wall Street – as well as the banking and insurance industries – a far, far better place in the future.

Isn’t that nice!

You’ll have to excuse me if I don’t trust Paulson.

He is, after all, the guy who hails from Wall Street, heads a secret group of market fixers and has sworn in the past to do “what it takes” to grease the financial system when it squeaks.

“What it takes,” of course, could be the appropriate motto for the can-do spirit that we need right now to mend what is wrong.

And if Paulson’s plan – or whatever it turns into – actually works, I will promise to put this guy on my Christmas card list for the rest of my (or his) life.

But “what it takes” can have much more sinister meanings, including stretching the boundaries of government so far that they’ll never return to their former limits.

Increasing the power of the Federal Reserve is the cornerstone of Paulson’s plan.

If the Treasury secretary gets his way, the nation’s central bank will be able to swoop in and save Wall Street financial firms – like it did for Bear Stearns.

In exchange, the government and taxpayers will get to monitor the firms a bit more. But, hey, why stop there?

The federal government should also protect insurance companies, and local governments, not to mention individuals as well as delis, pushcart operators and those guys who play music in the park for donations.

Everyone should be protected. But expanding the scope of socialism (oops: I meant “capitalism”) isn’t the only problem I have with Paulson’s ideas. There are several.

First off, wasn’t the Fed the organization that created this whole mess to begin with?

It’s pretty indisputable that the housing market (and buyers) wouldn’t have gotten so overheated if the Fed and Alan Greenspan, the real culprit in this whole mess, hadn’t kept interest rates extremely low for so long even though it was clear real estate prices were going to unsustainable levels.

Maybe Greenspan was swayed by political pressure. Maybe he just goofed.

But isn’t Greenspan also the guy who encouraged prospective homeowners to take out adjustable-rate mortgages even though he had to know borrowing costs would soon be going higher – because he was going to raise them.

So, in effect, Greenspan and the Fed are most responsible for so many people today no longer being able to afford their homes.

Why should we trust that organization again? True, there is a new guy in charge of the Fed. He’s Ben Bernanke, a former Princeton professor who once said that the nation’s economic ills could be fixed by a very simple adjustment – printing so much currency that everyone would have plenty of money to spend.

Professors sometimes say stupid things to incite thought in their students.

And I’m hoping that’s what was behind Bernanke’s cavalier printing-press statement.

But ideas like that could set off a panic among people (and countries) for which inflation is still a genuine concern.

But Bernanke’s ac tions this past year haven’t been all that encouraging.

When Wall Street started whining about the poor condition of the economy last summer, Bernanke couldn’t be accommodative enough, even though inflation pressures were (as they still are) troubling and the economy statistically was still booming.

Now, months later, Bernanke is running out of room to maneuver just as the economy looks to be getting worse.

But the biggest problem I have with Paulson’s proposed regulatory reform is this: it comes from The President’s Working Group on Financial Markets – a covert team headed by Paulson that also includes the leaders of the Fed as well as regulatory agencies.

The Working Group sure writes nice reports. And Paulson trots this group out anytime he’s in a bind.

And the group has been so successful that the Financial Times reported that England wants it to go international.

But so far the Treasury Secretary has been unwilling to say exactly what The Working Group does. I’ve asked. And Paulson has dodged.

Specifically, does The Working Group live up to its nickname of the Plunge Protection Team by rescuing the stock market in times of distress?

And who pulls the trigger?

There’s strong circumstantial evidence that this is exactly what the group does today and has done for years.

If these stock market rescues do occur, then capitalism and free markets were changed long ago. And we were all fools. john.crudele@nypost.com