“The cool kids in residence at Treasury and the Fed, following Tim Geithner’s curious motto, ‘Act fast, deal with the unintended consequences later’ bailed out the jocks and geeks and bodybuilders and speed junkies, pledging a sum that by Barry Ritholtz’s estimate exceeds the combined inflation-adjusted costs of the Marshall Plan, the Louisiana Purchase, the Space program, the Savings & Loan Crisis, the Korean and Vietnam Wars, both Iraq Wars and the New Deal.”
“Ritholtz doesn’t really fault their decisions, conceding later in a ‘naughty child index’ that AIG was akin to ‘the kid who accidentally stumbles into a biotech warfare lab’ and jams his pockets full of unlabeled vials before heading back to the playground. ‘History will judge’ is the chorus reverberating through the rest. And maybe it will, if enough Andrew Lahdes and Fat Tonys can be lured out of retirement to impress upon this generation of entitled overachievers what vacuous, cowardly and parasitic twerps they all are.” Moe Tkacik’s definitive parsing of crisis books is finally online. [Baffler]
