Conventional Wisdom Wrong Again: Turns Out, the Bail-Out Worked

The right-wing, anti-everything crowd has been whining for months (years, really) that the U.S. government bailed out the big boys on Wall Street while ignoring us small fry on Main Street.

Well, yes.

But—and this is a BIG but—the federal bailout, known as TARP—actually worked. It did. A second  Great Depression was avoided and a full-scale economic collapse did not occur.

It's unpopular to admit this, but in some circles the success of TARP has begun to be recognized. Politico has examined this and published its report, a report that contradicts the popular story.  (The complete story is here.)

Meanwhile, the Tea Party folks and reactionary Republicans continue to fume, pretending that their solution—doing nothing!—would have worked. Not very likely. 

As we like to say, the Radical Right—some of the finest minds of the 1920s.