News Release

Election Results from Obama’s Bank Failure

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JAMES K. GALBRAITH
Galbraith is Lloyd M. Bentsen Jr. chair in government/business relations at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. His latest book is The Predator State: How Conservatives Abandoned the Free Market and Why Liberals Should Too.

He said today: “This election was lost in February-March 2009 by (a) the failure to take over, reform and restructure the failed banks and the failure to prosecute bank fraud; (b) Larry Summers’ incredible assertion that unemployment would peak at 8 percent and the resulting too-small, too-short-term recovery act, and (c) the promotion of Geithner and (later) reappointment of Bernanke, which gave Obama ownership of every Bush policy on the crisis.

“The result was a bankers’ carnival as unemployment went to 10 percent and stayed there, generating well-justified mass outrage. The Republicans were, alas, the only available outlet for that anger.”

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167