Bailout: How Washington Abandoned Main Street While Rescuing Wall Street
This type of stimulus is precisely the kind of thing Milton Friedman railed against, so why is it happening at a time when neoliberalism seems stronger than ever? Blyth gives a simple explanation: Americans love us some guns — we have seventy million handguns alone. But most of us don’t have a lot of money. When Lehman collapsed, and the possibility of empty ATMs loomed, the US government was terrified that we would take our guns and go all Death Wish on each other. This fear, combined with the potential collapse of the US banks’ collective asset footprint, sent “US policy makers running to the tool shed for a solution.” The solution: TARP.
.. Barofsky sees the Treasury as an institution designed to manage the economic affairs of the country for the good of its people, not as an institution designed to manage the global economy. He finds “the condescension expressed toward the public about the right to know exactly how our money was being used” by Treasury infuriating. This condescension is rooted in Treasury’s belief in itself as leader of the global economy, no longer subject to the petty requests for fairness and truth (occasionally) demanded by Congress.