Bank Bailout: Hurts Worse When the Politicians Failing Us Inspired Hope and Promised Change
Filed under: Bailout Bill, Banking, U.S. Congress, U.S. Economy, U.S. Financial Crisis
There are so many things to dislike about the big banks, brokerages and insurance companies that brought the financial crisis upon us that one doesn’t know where to begin. So instead, let’s begin with the politicians who we elect and pay to keep us out of these messes.
They failed us last fall with the first enactment of the TARP – the $700 billion bailout – and they’re failing us again. Only now it hurts worse because the folks failing us are the ones who inspired hope and promised change.
I had a fantasy that change would mean a different approach in handling the greed and inequity which hide behind the corporate ramparts. I thought change would mean a president taking advice from the likes of Krugman and Galbraith and instead we’ve got Summers and Geithner. Where the problem with Krugman and Galbraith may be that they’re too “liberal” for a president trying to be non partisan and centrist, the answers to our problems do not lie with “the establishment,” represented by Summers and Geithner.
I’m angry, there are lots of people angry, and we don’t want to be told any reckless business is “too big to fail.”
On Tuesday, Geithner was still singing, Too Big to Fail. He didn’t tell us much, but he did tell us Washington is still willing to pull out the stops for the investment class. Congress is no better. When it comes to the financial services sector, Congress is operating in the irrelevant sector.
What we do still have a chance at here is change. Some players need to be thrown out of the game, and their survival shouldn’t have anything to do with how far their tentacles reach into the larger economy or the campaign accounts of our elected officials.
So, here’s another fantasy … Perhaps Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s announcement Tuesday was only a trial baloon. Maybe he and Larry Summers were on the phone with Robert Rubin and Alan Greenspan and thought they might be able to rig the game one more time for Wall Street. Geithner may have said, “Boys, I just don’t know, I think we’ve run our string, but I’ll try for one more – but I’m telling you, if there’s blowback, this president is different than the last two …”
That’s my fantasy anyway.
