"It's way too early to tally the costs of the government's various efforts to help out our nation's financial institutions survive the credit debacle. But that hasn't stopped anonymous Treasury officials from claiming in recent days that their Armageddon-avoidance will wind up costing far less than many feared. One Treasury estimate, leaked to the [WSJ] last week, put a price tag on $89 billion on the financial bailout. That's far below the $250 billion the Congression Budget Office estimated last year or other analyses that put the all-in-number at $1 trillion or more. ... And given that the Treasury is run by Timothy F. Geithner, the man who doled out billions as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, his current minions certainly have an interest in peddling the view that the price of those rescues has become less onerous. ... But if the Treasury wants to provde a full assessment of the costs of this financial debacle, it will have to add some more beads to its abacus. ... A major factor missing from the Treasury's math is the vast transfer of wealth to bank firm investors resulting from the Fed's near-zero interest-rate policy", Gretchen Morgenson at the NYT, 18 April 2010, link:
By George, Gretchen's got it!
2 comments:
Gretchen for Treasury Secretary!
Actually I'd take anyone who is not a minion of the banks like Geithner.
feeling like my own grandparent:
i remember when interest rates on mortgages, credit cards et al were tied to the treasury rate or prime or what have you, some government interest rate plus a percentage. now, the banks get the money at basically 0% and lend it out at 29.5%.
anyone wanna break some kneecaps?
who would have ever thought 5.25% would look like the good ole days?
hell yeah, gretchen for TS!
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