Free Republic

The Treasury Department plans to tap Neel Kashkari, an assistant secretary of international affairs and a former Goldman Sachs banker, to oversee the government's $700 billion financial rescue program, sources familiar with the situation said yesterday. Kashkari has been a close adviser to Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. on the credit crisis and helped draft the legislation for the massive rescue plan. He is expected to run the program on an interim basis until the Treasury finds a permanent head, according to sources who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment. Kashkari's replacement would...

Congress's bailout of the American financial system is a misguided scheme that will hurt the economy by delaying the economy's adjustment to a government-created housing bubble. Proponents of the bailout argued that it was a necessary short-term step to prop up the stock market and increase the flow of credit. Yet the stock market dropped several hundred points when the bailout was approved last week and the situation has deteriorated even further this week. Credit markets also have been less than enthusiastic about the bailout, in part because some tightening of lending standards is a good thing and also because...