Approaching the four-year anniversary of the bank bailout of September 2008, Neil Barofsky, the gentleman given the title special inspector general for the Toxic Asset Relief Program, is offering some details from an insider’s perspective of what has been only speculation up to this point.
Barofsky, author of the new book Bailout, also published a first-hand account in Bloomberg.com of his “oversight” of the $700 billion bailout of financial institutions that spanned the administrations of both George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
The former SIG shared some harsh realities:
• The Department of Treasury was assigned to “preserve homeownership” yet made changes at a “glacial pace” that contributes to “the current economic malaise;”
• Banks “received broad immunity from future civil cases arising out of their widespread use of forged, fraudulent or completely fabricated documents to foreclose on homeowners” within terms of the bailout;