I came across an interesting piece in BusinessWeek from December 2007 on one of my favorite subjects: Corporate Bailouts Through History.
It needs to be updated to include the Bear Stearns Bail Out, all of the Federal Reserve Lending to Financial firms, as well as whatever Housing Bailout the wizards in Washington come up with.
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Sources:
Corporate Bailouts Through History
John Tozzi
http://images.businessweek.com/ss/07/12/1217_bailouts/index_01.htm
Bailouts: Not Just Corporate Welfare
John Tozzi
December 18, 2007, 12:01AM EST
http://www.businessweek.com/investor/content/dec2007/pi20071218_675946.htm
Isn’t the Fed’s acceptance of mortgage backed securities as collateral essentially the bailout?
It’s interesting that Mr. Tozzi has chosen to display 18 of the 19 bailouts of the past century as happening after the U.S. abandoned the gold standard. Do you suppose that is intentional, or have we really gotten that bad with financial management since that time?
So there is no differentiation between private wealth investing (in some cases stupidly) and tax dollars being used? I always considered government “investments” as bailouts, but it seems as the BW editors are implying that private actors acting in their own self interest are bailing out the firms they invest in as opposed to taking advantage of the situation.
Regards,
TDL
Barry – since you’re going to be doing some work/research on the history of bailouts, I just wanted to mention that you should check out G. Edward Griffin’s book, “The Creature from Jekyll Island”, which is primarily about the Federal Reserve but also does a nice job discussing the history of bailouts.