Neil Barofsky can be forgiven a little posturing. Early on in
his short stint as Special Inspector General for TARP -- the bank
bailouts -- he realized that he had no choice but to set aside
bureaucratic caution and seize the mantle of whistleblower and
reformer.
Barofsky, who before receiving an appointment from the Bush administration had spent his career prosecuting mortgage fraudsters and drug runners, makes it clear he didn't set out to rock the boat. It was only after he realized how completely Wall Street had captured the regulatory system in Washington that he discerned that there would be no way for him to fulfill his oversight role without being harshly critical of the establishment.
A Democrat, Barofsky is as unsparing of the Obama administration for its handling of TARP as he is of the Bush team. He faults Bush appointees, including Treasury secretary Hank Paulson and TARP "czar" Neel Kashkari (both alumni of Goldman Sachs), for ladling out hundreds of billions of dollars to Wall Street banks and automakers without concern for the interests of taxpayers or consumers. But Barofsky takes special care to document the failures of current Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner in his mismanagement of the bank bailouts, his bungled administration of a program to help distressed homeowners, and his role in deforming the Dodd-Frank Act.
Read more: http://spectator.org/archives/2012/08/07/tarps-goodfellas
Barofsky, who before receiving an appointment from the Bush administration had spent his career prosecuting mortgage fraudsters and drug runners, makes it clear he didn't set out to rock the boat. It was only after he realized how completely Wall Street had captured the regulatory system in Washington that he discerned that there would be no way for him to fulfill his oversight role without being harshly critical of the establishment.
A Democrat, Barofsky is as unsparing of the Obama administration for its handling of TARP as he is of the Bush team. He faults Bush appointees, including Treasury secretary Hank Paulson and TARP "czar" Neel Kashkari (both alumni of Goldman Sachs), for ladling out hundreds of billions of dollars to Wall Street banks and automakers without concern for the interests of taxpayers or consumers. But Barofsky takes special care to document the failures of current Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner in his mismanagement of the bank bailouts, his bungled administration of a program to help distressed homeowners, and his role in deforming the Dodd-Frank Act.
Read more: http://spectator.org/archives/2012/08/07/tarps-goodfellas
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