There is no doubt that “something” had to be done, IMHO, but the way it was done was totally unconscionable. The big players should have been allowed to fail, and there should have been intensive investigations of the people involved in causing the credit bubble (I’m talking about the Big Boyz at the top).
The FDIC, SIPC, and PBGC (maybe even local and state govts) should have had open lines of credit with the Treasury, and the taxpayers/citizens should have been told that all their **insured** deposits would be covered. The govt should have taken over the failed institutions and transferred their assets/business to institutions that remained prudent throughout the upswing of the credit bubble, or they could have nationalized them while things were being sorted out. The Fed/Treasury could have set up a lending program as a stop-gap measure where businesses could borrow on a temporary basis while things were sorted out.
The housing should have been allowed to sort itself out, and people should have been foreclosed on if they overextended themselves or made poor “investments” while lenders should have suffered the losses they deserved because they made those ridiculous loans that any monkey could have known were never going to be paid in full.
Yes, the downdraft would have been very sharp and swift, but we would have bottomed after the cleansing that we desperately needed to get rid of the debt overhang and artificially high asset prices.
IMHO, we did not avert a depression, we’ve merely postponed it, and likely made it much bigger when it does come.
The problem is not solved. The people are being fooled into thinking all is well. We are making some very, very foolish choices as a nation.
