Look At My Outrage, Not My Failure

clipped from online.wsj.com Not that this stopped the Obama administration from jumping on the "outrage" bandwagon this week over AIG bonuses. Greed, greed, greed, screamed Washington, hoping nobody would notice its own failure to supervise AIG over the years, its botched intervention, or the administration's refusal to come clean about where the AIG money was going. This spectacle has left the financial community with one impression: Stay away. What healthy bank, what hedge fund, what private equity firm wants to take part in an Obama plan to sell off toxic assets, or to revive consumer lending, with the knowledge that they might be Washington's newest bonfire? Executives are already working to get out of TARP, fearful of political punishment. This despite a recession, falling house prices and growing bank losses.