Economy
In reply to the discussion: Weekend Economists Repent! The End Is Here! July 20-22, 2012 [View all]DemReadingDU
(16,000 posts)7/22/12 'Bailout' lifts the veil on Wall Street rescue
Neil Barofsky is not a household name, but he knows as much about what went wrong with the taxpayer bailout of Wall Street brokerages and national banks as anybody. In his scathing new book, Barofsky says taxpayers got shafted while the rich got richer.
In Bailout, Barofsky writes that when he became the official watchdog for taxpayers, I hadnt yet understood the degree to which the entire crisis was unleashed by the greed of a small handful of executives who exploited a financial system that guaranteed no matter what risks they took, theyd be able to keep the profits ... I had no idea that the U.S. government had been captured by the banks and that those running the bailout program Id been charged with overseeing would come from the very same institutions that had both caused the crisis and then become the beneficiaries of the generous terms of their bailout.
Four years ago, Barofsky was an assistant federal prosecutor. To his surprise, Barofsky received a job suggestion from his boss, Mike Garcia, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. The job: special inspector general in charge of oversight for TARP.
Imagine Barofskys surprise when he heard the suggestion from Garcia, a Republican political appointee, who said the new job would be filled by President George W. Bush. Barofsky was a Democrat who had contributed to the presidential campaign of Barack Obama.
Well, Barofsky applied for the job and received the appointment, remaining as special inspector general until March 2011. His account of those years is a true expose. He names names of powerful men and women trying to sabotage the honest administration of the bailout. Although Bush and Obama do not escape Barofskys whistle blowing, the chief villain is Timothy Geithner, the headline grabbing U.S. treasury secretary and former president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank.
The amorality and corruption delineated by Barofsky can be described fairly as breathtaking and disgusting. Taxpayers who feel helpless in the midst of the extended economic recession are likely to feel energized to metaphorically blow up the system after reading Barofskys account.
http://www.stltoday.com/entertainment/books-and-literature/book-blog/bailout-lifts-the-veil-on-wall-street-rescue/article_8924318a-d114-11e1-9083-0019bb30f31a.html#ixzz21LhQEXjJ