UNFORTUNATELY, Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. has turned this old song into the unofficial theme of the Troubled Assets Relief Program, the $700 billion bailout. His frequent changes of direction are not only embarrassing, they also upset the very markets this program was designed to calm.
It pains me to say this, because I was among the first to call upon Congress to create two institutions to deal with the financial crisis: one to buy and refinance home mortgages, the other to buy what came to be called “troubled assets.” The legislation signed in October empowered the TARP to do both. Sadly and amazingly, it has done neither.
Very trenchant analysis.
So, given the failure to buy and refinance home mortgages, and the failure to buy “troubled assetsâ€, the stated purpose of the TARP…was there really an urgent need to pass the legislation? Evidently, since the two reasons for TARP have gone unfulfilled, there never was a crisis that needed such fast track legislation. If there had been, then the failure to accomplish the stated goals of TARP should have destroyed the economy by now. Shouldn’t there have been more review? More oversight?
Shouldn’t the idiots have at least read the bill they voted into law!?!
They, the congress, gave a blank check for $350,000,000,000 to one guy with no strings and no oversight!
The Banks are saying that they don’t know where the money is going: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081222/ap_on_bi_ge/meltdown_secrets
This is enough to warm one’s heart. Both parties cooperated in this fiasco and there is more on the way with our money. But that’s ok. I am sure we all earn tons of money to give to the Feds.