As my post on cramdown says, they were utterly unable to conceptualize my side. They rejected it for reasons that made no sense. There were other similar issues where ideological bias controlled the outcome. Swagel writes in such a way that these matters are fairly clear.

Well, if Swagel has managed to pull that off, my hat is off to him.

Thanks for the follow-up, and this Case Study is now added to my ever-expanding list of reading materials on this general topic of economic meltdown.

As my post on cramdown says, they were utterly unable to conceptualize my side. They rejected it for reasons that made no sense. There were other similar issues where ideological bias controlled the outcome. Swagel writes in such a way that these matters are fairly clear.

but I think they were trying in the context of their preconceptions about the nature of the problem and the general tenor of the incompetent Bush administration.

Wow, thank you so much for the correction in pointing out that this report merits more fair-mindedness that I’ve clearly given to it (and I’m not being snarky!).
What you describe is what I would call a Case Study, and IMHO they are quite difficult to do well. They’re hard for many reasons, some emotional, but also intellectual.

From your comment @35, it sounds like this document is what I would call a Case Study (or a Quality Analysis Assessment: QAA), and if that’s the case and you recommend it then I’ll put it on my reading list.

The other background reading that I’ve been doing has been incredibly eye-opening — simply looking at relationships and shifting patterns of money and influence has been incredibly discouraging, although it explains a great deal. So it is true that I now view almost anything written by an ‘insider’ through dark, corroded lenses. But that creates its own inaccuracies, and is not helpful over the long term — certainly not for such a vast, complex problem as we’re watching unfold.

I wouldn’t want to insult or smear anyone’s genuine efforts to do a solid ‘Case Study’, and in that spirit — knowing how hard those are to write up (and how much WORK they are to write up!), then I deeply appreciate your gently worded guidance and correction.

FWIW, I left a comment re: Phil Gramm, the SEC’s 2000 budget and Gramm’s determination to undercut the SEC by means of cutting its budget on a thread at EW today on the topic of Louis Freeh and his role in protecting activities like BAE’s corruption. After looking at the Senate’s role in diminishing regulatory institutions, perhaps I’ve become to cynical to see with clarity, so I do appreciate your efforts to help me see with greater accuracy.

Still, there is no denying that their unwillingness to talk to the nation about the problems and their plans was a major part of the disconnect we all feel from the solutions. The lack of respect for the citizenry is really obvious, and you may be able to see in my comments on it a bit of hostility at the idea that I can’t be trusted to understand the brilliance of their actions.

This last statement is Swagel’s snide way of saying that both the Bush administration and the Obama administration operate on the belief that the only way out is to subsidize the rich. Apparently, no one has the moral character to make their friends and supporters eat their losses.

In the thick of 2008’s presidential primaries & subsequent general election, nothing was clearer than what the real contest was about — who could craft, then sell the most effective marketing campaign of rejecting Bush/Cheney policies, which were wildly successful for a very small segment of the country.

Eventually “Yes we can” was the winner over McCain/Palin’s trainwreck of a message machine as it careened from one week to the next.

While Wall Street’s power play symbiosis with D.C. seemed to be at risk, it never was. Obama’s very first appointment of Rahm Emmanuel as White House chief of staff was the harbinger of today’s private losers take all from the massively expanding public debt mentality.

Soaring rhetoric and coherent sentence structure notwithstanding, the moral imperative remains unchanged. As a matter of domestic and just as importantly foreign policy, the U.S. corporate & central bank financial structure must be preserved, protected and defended …. so help them God.

It begs the question — when we speak for a sustainable future, sustainable for whom?

Another aspect of this which could be considered is that many foreign countries could easily have chosen to view this as some strange kind of aggression which was trashing their economies. In that context this would have been a kind of economic war and in that environment government HAS to act to protect America from whatever crazy things a few banks have done.

In the end it comes down to the will to act for the good of the country instead of protecting minority interests to the exclusion of everybody else — as Bush did so often.

Just look at how the government took over AIG. It bought 79.9% of the company and informed AIG of what it had done. The Fed has moved from monetary to fiscal policy with no statutory authorization I know of. Geithner’s PPIP uses the FDIC in ways never envisioned in any law. The whole failure to declare banks insolvent and move them promptly into receivership is a case where the law is clear but is being completely ignored. So when Swagel says that debt for equity swaps could not be done because there wasn’t a specific law authorizing it, I don’t buy his argument for a second.