Hank “the Hammer” Paulson gets nailed in Alan Blinder’s column Missing the Target with $700 Billion. Blinder supported both the creation of the TARP (troubled assets relief program) and the government purchase and refinancing of troubled mortgages. But now he says Paulson has failed to implement either, and done so in a way that is troubling.
I had given Paulson the benefit of the doubt for failing fast, not flailing.
But now that we’ve seen how the government treated the automakers, at a time when even Toyota can’t sell cars, it is puzzling to look back at how gently, and generously, the government dealt with banks. Blinder’s column shows the fealty that Wall Street now commands in Washington. Maybe he should’ve been reading Peter Galuszka from the start.
