I\u2019m worried. We\u2019ve just elected a talented young president with many good instincts about how to propel our country forward, extend health care to more people, make our tax code fairer and launch a green industrial revolution. But do you know what I fear? I fear that his whole first term could be eaten by Citigroup, A.I.G., Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, and the whole housing\/subprime credit bubble we inflated these past 20 years.<\/p>\n
I hope my fears are exaggerated. But ask yourself this: Why couldn\u2019t former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson solve this problem? And why does it seem as though his successor, Tim Geithner, won\u2019t even look us in the eye and spell out his strategy? Is it because they don\u2019t get it? No. It is because they know \u201d\u201d like Roy Scheider in the movie \u201cJaws,\u201d\u009d when he first saw the great white shark \u201d\u201d that \u201cwe\u2019re gonna need a bigger boat,\u201d\u009d and they\u2019re too afraid to tell us just how big.<\/p>\n
This problem is more complicated than anything you can imagine. We are coming off a 20-year credit binge. As a country, too many of us stopped making money by making \u201cstuff\u201d\u009d and started making money from money \u201d\u201d consumers making money out of rising home prices and using the profits to buy flat-screen TVs from China on their credit cards, and bankers making money by creating complex securities and leverage so more and more consumers could get in on the credit game.<\/p>\n