Former Head of Fed’s Open Market Operations Says Bailout Might Make Things Worse

Another key insider has said that the Paulson plan might make things worse. Specifically, the former head of the Fed’s open market operation – the key Fed agency which has been loaning hundreds of billions of dollars to Wall Street companies and banks – was quoted in Bloomberg:

“Every time you tinker with this delicate system even small changes can create big ripples,” said Dino Kos, former head of the New York Fed’s open-market operations . . . “This is the impossible situation they are in. The risks are that the government’s $700 billion purchase of assets disturbs markets even more.”

In other words, it might do more harm than good.

Mr. Kos joins a long list of other leading experts who question the bailout, including:

• The Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President (Richard Fisher) said the proposed bailout would plunge the U.S. government deeper into a fiscal abyss

• The former Secretary of the Treasury (Paul O’Neill) questions the bailout

• The director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (Peter R. Orszag) said the bailout could deepen the crisis

• The former Chairman of the FDIC (William Isaac) doubts the bailout will work in its current form

• Hundreds of leading economists, including numerous nobel prize winners, question the bailout

• Former White House economist (Steve Hanke) adamantly opposes the bailout

• Nobel prize economist and former chief economist of the World Bank (Joseph Stiglitz) opposes the bailout

• A prominent economist (Nouriel Roubini) says “The Treasury plan is a disgrace: a bailout of reckless bankers, lenders and investors that provides little direct debt relief to borrowers and financially stressed households and that will come at a very high cost to the US taxpayer. And the plan does nothing to resolve the severe stress in money markets and interbank markets that are now close to a systemic meltdown.”

• A highly-regarded economist (Michael Hudson) says that the bailout is a giveaway that will cause hyperinflation and dollar collapse

• Many other leading economists question the bailout