Sunday, March 22, 2009

Despair over financial policy


By Paul Krugman
N.Y. Times

"The Geithner plan has now been leaked in detail. It’s exactly the plan that was widely analyzed — and found wanting — a couple of weeks ago. The zombie ideas have won......

This plan will produce big gains for banks that didn’t actually need any help; it will, however, do little to reassure the public about banks that are seriously undercapitalized. And I fear that when the plan fails, as it almost surely will, the administration will have shot its bolt: it won’t be able to come back to Congress for a plan that might actually work.

What an awful mess.

Why was I so quick to condemn the Geithner plan? Because it's not new; it's just another version of an idea that keeps coming up and keeps being refuted. It's basically a thinly disguised version of the same plan Henry Paulson announced way back in September. To understand the issue, let me offer some background.....

Why am I so vehement about this? Because I'm afraid that this will be the administration's only shot - that if the first bank plan is an abject failure, it won't have the political capital for a second. So it's just horrifying that Obama - and yes, the buck stops there - has decided to base his financial plan on the fantasy that a bit of financial hocus-pocus will turn the clock back to 2006."

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