NYT book review: 'Bailout' by Neil Barofsky
From the opening of this latest book on the government’s (mis)handling of the 2008-9 financial crisis, Neil Barofsky establishes his populist narrative from his two-plus years as the “TARP cop” overseeing the $700 billion big-bank bailout officially known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program.
Mr. Barofsky, a former Manhattan prosecutor, is the idealistic alien sent in an emergency to Planet Washington, where he does battle with the self-important, self-serving powers entrenched there or simply taking a spin through its revolving door to Wall Street. He is SIGTARP (in Washington-speak, the Special Inspector General for TARP). But ultimately he is outmatched, and evil triumphs over good.
In the preface to “Bailout: An Inside Account of How Washington Abandoned Main Street While Rescuing Wall Street,” it is April 2010, and after more than a year on the job, Mr. Barofsky is meeting for a clear-the-air drink with one of his nemeses, Herbert Allison, the former head of the financial giants Merrill Lynch, TIAA-CREF and Fannie Mae, who came out of retirement to run the bank-rescue program for the Treasury Department. Mr. Barofsky, wearing an unseasonal wool suit at odds with a “Washington-appropriate wardrobe,” is poised to let the hostess seat them at a front table of her choosing, but Mr. Allison insists on a private table in the rear. Then he gets down to business.
“Have you thought at all about what you’ll be doing next?” Mr. Allison asks Mr. Barofsky, soon adding, “Out there in the market, there are consequences for some of the things that you’re saying and the way that you’re saying them.”
full: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/25/books/bailout-by-neil-barofsky.html?pagewanted=all
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