Same as it Ever Was Pt. II

William Cohan over at The Atlantic (I am really starting to like that magazine) has a nice article, entitled "An Offer He Couldn't Refuse" (but the online version is entitled "The Final Days of Merrill Lynch"), describing the events leading up to and during the purchase of Merrill Lynch by Bank of America; a transaction which was, for all intents and purposes, forced upon BofA by the thuggery of Bernanke and Paulson and, by extension, the Fed and U. S. Government (and, by extension, the U.S. citizenry -- you and me). I won't excerpt out the juicy bits for you, but this quote is central to the real issues of the legality and Constitutionality of what Bernanke and Paulson did:

"...it also sounds an awful lot like what happens in a banana republic or in Putin's Russia, when the captains of industry did favors for the government in exchange for economic subsidies. How do you stop from going down the slippery slope and becoming like Putin's Russia?"

There is decent discussion about the vast amount of "moral hazard" wrought by Bernanke and Paulson (not just with regard to the Merrill deal, but also the GM bail out, TARP, etc.), the sanctity of contracts, and how the markets can function properly if the rules can change whenever the Fed or government decides to change them or if big risk-takers can bet on being bailed-out.

PS - The graphic in the online version of the article is just part of the full graphic in the print version. The full graphic is priceless as it shows Lewis being forced into eating from a bowl of bubbling, green, malignant, toxic sludge.