Martin Wolf of the Financial Times has written a pretty scathing critique of the new US Administation’s overhaul of the TARP program. I am increasingly convinced by Duncan Cameron’s argument that – in the US at least – the best way out is to nationalize the banks, run them as a public utility, and compensate the shareholders only if there is remaining equity after purging the books of toxic assets. The alternative is to pay too much – socializing the losses of the bankers – or to offer too little – leaving the continuing credit crisis unresolved. Wolf’s basic point is that half measures designed to appease Wall Street are doomed to failure. It is one thing for those on the left to be so quick to write off Obamanomics, much scarier when such a trenchant critique and call for truly radical actions comes from such an impeccably mainstream source.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9ebea1b8-f794-11dd-81f7-000077b07658.html