There Was No Bailout; It is a Rescue Plan

Many people (including Yours Truly) were concerned that the $700 billion rescue plan was a coordinated effort to bail out the Wall Street executives whose firms contributed to the crisis that has consumed the global economy.

The more recent emergency measures by the Federal Reserve and central banks around the world since then should be evidence that the bailout was, in fact, a desperate but much-needed measure to keep the financial system intact and the infrastructure afloat. Furthermore, the abysmal performance of securities exchanges around the world serves as a good litmus test that this crisis goes well beyond the concern of executive compensation and golden parachutes.

No doubt, naysayers will pounce on the myriad examples — such as AIG’s $400K boondoggle after the government stepped in to save it — in an attempt to prove that the package is flawed and it is propping up the perpetrators of our economy’s financial crimes.

Of course it is. But the absence of even the most “flawed” plan would have been cataclysmic. There will be time enough to go back and point fingers, place blame and prosecute those who have been reckless with our money. Until then, Paulson, Bernanke, et al are taking the drastic measures to keep historians from rewriting textbooks about the Great Depression as the worst economic disaster in our history.