It was George W. Bush who decided to bail the Wall Street banks out in 2008 instead of forcing them into bankruptcy. Instead of bailing out the banks and their executives, the government should have bailed out the depositors up to the FDIC limit. Let the shareholders, executive, and shareholders take it on the chin. The New York banking cabal would have evaporated and the conservative regional banks such as BB&T would have survived and rebuilt the system. We wouldn’t have the trillion dollar deficits or the trillions of dollars of money printing that is destroying the currency and the economy.
Yes Bush abdicated to his Secretary of the Treasury Paulson (former Goldman Sachs Chairman) and Ben Bernanke (Bush’s appointment to Fed Chairman). The Republicans in the House tried to stop this massive payoff to irresponsible special interests but were brought to heel by Bush and McCain. Bush rewarded the irresponsible and by passing TARP set the stage for Obama’s irresponsible deficit spending spree. Not that Bush hadn’t doubled the national debt himself during his 8 years. He never could find that veto pen when it came to spending bills.
Paul O’Neill, Bush’s first Secretary of the Treasury tried to institute budgetary reforms and rein in some of the irresponsible behavior of the banking community. O’Neill was sacked for his efforts. John Snow (a railroad man) who followed O’Neill was eased out to make room for Goldman Sachs Chairman Henry Paulson. Thanks to Bush the fox was literally running the henhouse when the 2008 financial crisis occurred and Bush failed to take away the keys during the moment of crisis. It is sad, given a choice between the citizens who elected him and the crony capitalists of Wall Street, Bush chose to bail out the financiers and hand the check to Main Street.
Brilliant idea! Instead of $700 billion for TARP and getting the bank portion entirely paid back, we could have spent $700 billion, with nothing paid back, and a crushing depression. Brilliant!
Let the shareholders, executive, and shareholders take it on the chin.
Yeah, because those groups didn't already take it on the chin, you want the rest of the country to take it over the head, with a brick.
We wouldn’t have the trillion dollar deficits or the trillions of dollars of money printing that is destroying the currency and the economy.
We'd be wishing for a $1.5 trillion deficit.
The Republicans in the House tried to stop this massive payoff to irresponsible special interests
Yeah, but enough about Fannie, Freddie and the auto makers.
The nasty financiers repaid the bailout. Main street still owes the banks.