Herewith some thoughts from an old hand in the financial sector on the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (the “Act”), establishing a fund to carry out the $700 billion “troubled asset relief program” (a/k/a “Tarp”). The bill was at last passed and signed on October 3rd, in spite of a glut of polemic overload … literally hundreds of self appointed pundits expressing their opinions in The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, et al., all augmented by television talking heads, talk radio and street corner prophets.
What I will try to do is put the metrics in context, in (I hope) a disciplined way which draws on my experience in situations which share parallels (no two crises are exactly alike, of course) with the current circumstance.
Let me use a format I think works when one is trying to cut through an enormous overload of opinion, blather, gabble … the length and spurious certitude often inversely proportional to the wisdom and knowledge of the faux savant. A hypothetical inquisitor deposes the witness … i.e. myself.
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