Krugman:
...the plan is to use taxpayer funds to drive the prices of bad assets up to “fair” levels. Mr. Paulson proposed having the government buy the assets directly. Mr. Geithner instead proposes a complicated scheme in which the government lends money to private investors, who then use the money to buy the stuff. The idea, says Mr. Obama’s top economic adviser, is to use “the expertise of the market” to set the value of toxic assets.
But the Geithner scheme would offer a one-way bet: if asset values go up, the investors profit, but if they go down, the investors can walk away from their debt. So this isn’t really about letting markets work. It’s just an indirect, disguised way to subsidize purchases of bad assets.
The likely cost to taxpayers aside, there’s something strange going on here. By my count, this is the third time Obama administration officials have floated a scheme that is essentially a rehash of the Paulson plan, each time adding a new set of bells and whistles and claiming that they’re doing something completely different. This is starting to look obsessive.
But the real problem with this plan is that it won’t work...
Elections do have consequences. In this one, we had the alternative of accepting the same old policymakers that ruined the country in the Bu$h administration. Or, we could elect a bold, fresh new Democratic face. In other words, we could allow ourselves to be flat out speared by the banksters, or swallow their shiny new Hopeful bait, hook, line, and sinker.
1 comment:
.
Obama's granny was a banker. She raised him. He's entirely too comfortable with them, as is Geithner, their errand-boy.
Timmeh needs to get fired, and Barreh needs to move way left, or he's out in 2012. This is just the sort of crisis that put Hitler in power. It's coming down to a choice between socialism & National Socialism. We know which one is ready to move.
.
Post a Comment