Thursday, October 28, 2010

Political Myth 3: Obama Bailed Out the Banks

This week I am reposting this article, point by point.

Reality: While many people conflate the "stimulus" with the bank bailouts, the bank bailouts were requested by President Bush and his Treasury Secretary, former Goldman Sachs CEO Henry Paulson. (Paulson also wanted the bailouts to be "non-reviewable by any court or any agency.") The bailouts passed and began before the 2008 election of President Obama.

4 comments:

Whit said...

You're right on this one. But the next question to ask is whether the new financial regulation bill:
(1) Does anything to decrease the chance this could happen again by insuring that financial institutions do not get "too big to fail." (If they're TBTF, they're too big.)
(2) Does anything to fix Fannie and Freddie, who are still on life support from the Feds. Their business model, of public risk and private reward, and their Congressional mandate to encourage loans with little or no down payment to customers with dubious credit, was at the root of the crisis.

Brendan said...

On your first point, Whit, you and I are in complete agreement. This is why I applauded the appointment of Elizabeth Warren, who has been saying as much for years.

Whit said...

Brendan, Warren may have been saying it, but the role she has been given would have nothing to do with this. Rather her agency is given more or less carte blanche to make whatever rules they think they want without Congress having any say, to limit freedom of contract.

Whit said...

Brendan, Warren may have been saying it, but the role she has been given would have nothing to do with this. Rather her agency is given more or less carte blanche to make whatever rules they think they want without Congress having any say, to limit freedom of contract.