October 10th, 2008

Pieler and Laurson in the DC Examiner: ’Bailout is a Bipartisan Short Sale’

Posted in  Economic Growth  Politics 
Author: Erin Humiston || Location: Lewisville, Texas, USA

In a brand new op/ed published today by the DC Examiner, IPI senior fellow George Pieler and International Affairs Forum editor-in-chief Jens F. Laurson write:

“When Congress and Hank Paulson agreed government should relieve financial firms of bad assets, the world of global finance breathed a sigh of relief.  Socializing the cost of liquidating ‘toxic assets’, mostly bad-mortgage paper, is supposed to get credit flowing again and prevent things from getting worse.

Will it? When the House voted ‘no’ on this exceptional experiment in bipartisanship, the market went way down.  When the Senate voted ‘yes’ on its heavily sweetened version of the same thing, the market went way down.  When the House finally approved the behemoth… the market went down. Since then the Dow Jones has dropped over 1,000 points.

In the hothouse-crisis atmosphere generated by the Wall Street-Washington alliance, it was risky to do nothing.  But that’s no reason to do just anything.  With taxpayers outraged over bailing out Wall Street, Paulson and Congress needed an overwhelming display of bipartisanship…"

To read the full article, please visit the DC Examiner online.