Britain's Bailout Shows How Washington's Economic Policy Could Be Better

A lot of the pro-TARP rhetoric that was floating around up to the bill's passage revolved around the idea that even if it wasn't the best idea, there wasn't enough time to come up with something better, something had to be passed immediately, there weren't really any better alternatives, etc, etc.  Arguments that have since been blown out of the water by the fact that the Brits were able to put together a vastly superior bailout plan for their banks in less than 24-hours. In other words: it wasn't that TARP was the best option given time constraints, the nature of the problem, etc, it was just the only solution that our government had the courage to put forth at the time.

Truth be told the British didn't come up with anything especially innovative, they just used the fairly obvious solution for the problem at hand, a solution was being suggested by many of TARPs critics in op-ed pieces, news articles, within  the blogosphere, etc.  The only difference between the British government and the American one, is that their politicians had the courage to do not only the right thing for the taxpayer, but to do the right thing for the banking system.

The problem was never a lack of time, the magnitude of the problem, etc, it was simply a case of a lack of leadership, integrity and courage. What other conclusions can we come to as taxpayers in America when another government was able to draft a vastly superior plan in so short a time?

The British response to their on banking crisis coupled with the utter disgrace that is TARP reveals the need for stronger economic leadership in Washington, leadership that I don't think either party is really capable of delivering right now.  Over the long-term the only we're going to get past the current crisis and not suffer from a new crisis in the medium term that's an after effect of this one, is if we put in a new crop of politicians who can provide the level of economic leadership we need to turn this thing around.

Until we get a set of real economic leaders in Washington, along with a set of corporate executives who are both honest and prudent in their approach to managing our nation's top companies, we can expect a protracted period of recession and stagnation stemming from the current crisis, and a fresh new set of crises down the road that will probably be the cost for the so called solutions to this one.