Will a Crisis Create a Scandal? - NYT

[WillyT]

Will a Crisis Create a Scandal?

by Floyd Norris
September 21, 2008, 1:57 pm

<snip>

I’ve been out of town, and have not studied all the available details of the Bush administration plan. But I have a few observations.

1. I suspect that Hyman Minsky, the economist who wrote that stability can be destabilizing, and who I was surprised to hear being quoted by a Bush administration official a few months ago, would have forecast such a massive bailout long before it happened.

2. It is unsettling to see Wall Street firms that only a week ago feared for their survival hoping to get rich off this program. It needs to be carefully monitored to keep it from becoming a scandal of its own.

3. The Bush administration was a little slow to decide this was a massive crisis, but they reverted to form when they did. They want Congress to give them a blank check to do whatever they want, whatever the cost, with no one able to watch them closely.

4. Hank Paulson is a lot more competent that some of the people who gave the Bush administation a reputation for incompetence — remember the stories of being unable to account for suitcases full of cash in Iraq — but it would be no insult to him to insist on better monitoring. If nothing else, he will not be Treasury secretary for very long, since the new president will undoubtedly replace him. Some kind of board should be established, and all the officials on the board should share responsibility for major decisions.

5. This crisis is not so important that a bill really needs to be passed without time for the public to read it and study it. If Congress has to delay leaving to campaign for a few days, so be it.

6. This is not similar to the Resolution Trust Company. The assets it liquidated were acquired when failed savings and loans were taken over by the government. There was no question of purchase price. Here purchase price is crucial. What are the safeguards to prevent cronies and contributors from getting favorable deals, either in selling assets or in purchasing them?

<snip>

More: http://norris.blogs.nytimes.com/

:shrug:

[fed_up_mother]

1. I posted point six on here a couple of days ago.

[MsLeopard]

2. Disaster capitalism at work

They're using the situation to enact drastic and detrimental policy on an American populace that has been decimated already. Naomi Klein described the process perfectly, and many here at DU predicted they would so exactly this. The scandal would be if they didn't propose an un-monitored trillion dollar bailout. The bastards.