Bailout

An Inside Account of How Washington Abandoned Main Street While Rescuing Wall Street

By: Neil Barofsky

Narrated by: Joe Barrett

Length: 9 hrs and 27 mins

Publisher's summary

An insider of both the Bush and Obama administrations offers an irrefutable indictment of the mishandling of the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program bailouts and the extreme degree to which our government officials—from both parties—served the interests of Wall Street at the expense of the public.

From his first day on the job as the special inspector general in charge of overseeing the distribution of the bailout money, Neil Barofsky found that the officials at the Treasury Department in charge of the bailouts were in thrall to the interests of the big banks. In vivid behind-the-scenes detail he reveals how they steadfastly failed to hold the banks accountable even as they disregarded major job losses caused by the auto bailouts and refused to help struggling homeowners. He discloses how the team at the Treasury under Secretary Timothy Geithner worked with Wall Street executives to design programs that would have funneled vast amounts of taxpayer money to their firms and allowed them to game the markets and make huge profits with almost no risk and no accountability. Providing stark details about how—through a combination of sheer incompetence and a profound disregard of the plight of homeowners—the interests of the broader public were betrayed, he recounts how an increasingly aggressive war was waged by the Treasury against his efforts to raise the alarm about the failures.

Bailout is a riveting account of his plunge into the political meat grinder of Washington, as well as a vital revelation of just how captive to Wall Street our political system is and why the too-big-to-fail banks have only become bigger and more dangerous in the wake of the crisis.

Neil Barofsky is currently a senior fellow at New York University School of Law. From December 2008 until March 2011, he served as the special inspector general in charge of oversight of the Troubled Asset Relief Program. Before that he was a federal prosecutor in the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. Bailout is his first book.

©2012 Neil Barofsky (P)2012 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Barofsky's Bio of the time he was a TARP Watchdog

This book is a great story if you know absolutely nothing about how Washington works. Barofsky takes the reader from the beginning where he was just a lawyer from the south district of NY investigating & prosecuting fraud and drug crimes. His boss who passed him up for one promotion was now recommending him for a job in Washington as an insider. Barofsky's entire perspective is the journey of a man who becomes a Washington insider by taking a job he never expected to get in a town and political climate he never fancied.

Chapter 1-2 are about how he came to be confirmed as an inspector general. He gives great anecdotes and quotes from people he came into contact with or people he worked with or from his own family members to paint a picture.

I'm currently on Chapter 3 where he now has the job, he recruited a talented buddy of his to be his partner although only one of them would get the risk and reward for any of their work done. He describes his office, his interaction with Henry "Hank" Paulson. How wet behind the ears he was in Washington even being naive at times. It's a great account for anyone taking a job in Washington where they're having to start an entire dept/operation (well funded operation) in Washington from the ground up. Human mistakes will be made.

Forgettable

Meh. It’s this guys account of events during his time as the top cop overlooking TARP. Nothing groundbreaking, no special analysis or anything else. Just an account of events from one man’s experience. It’s like a double discount version of Yanis’ book Adults in the Room about Greek situation.

An important testimony

Would you consider the audio edition of Bailout to be better than the print version?

Audio edition is excellent

Who was your favorite character and why?

Neil Barofsky. He exemplifies not a hero or an ideal, but the kind of person needed in government: someone honest who thinks of the people the government is supposed to serve.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

Yes, I was disgusted by the Treasury's attitude

Any additional comments?

A valuable addition to the literature around 2008 and an important testimony.

Good

Very well put together book. The real life experience makes all the difference when it comes to this subject,’.

Party politics are meaningless - Banks rule us.

This was a very open and honest story about how our government caters to big business, in this case banks, and the rest of us are just a vehicle for them to do so. At the end of the day our wallets and purses are all our elected officials care about; not our needs and protection. The Constitution states that the purpose for the federal government is to protect the people. This book makes it abundantly clear that is a meaningless charge when it comes to the latest group of "for sale" administrations. Bush setup TARP and Obama ran it. And both Administrations lied to the public when it came to how the funds would be used to pass it, and all of them made sure the Banks (and Wall Street) were protected in the mortgage bailout, while we picked up the tab and did not get anything for our money!!

This book was written by someone that knows where all the bodies are buried and whose job it was to police these bailouts. He was our advocate in Washington by Congressional mandate and he was ignored and considered an obstacle by the crooks in the Treasury department. It is those appointees, who should be in jail for fraud along with the bankers that ripped off everyone, but instead they were given a free pass and bonuses by their Wall Street pals in the Treasury Department with taxpayer bailout funds!! And it should come as no surprise that they are positioning us for another round of rip-offs as I write this review, but no one seems to notice or care. The occupy Wall Street crowd was not wrong, just too unfocused. In the end, this book proves that we as Americans have a serious problem with our system and elected officials. They only care about money and power, and those of you loyal to a political party are just their pawns in a much bigger game where you are the cannon fodder. Believing in any politician is like believing in the Easter bunny because they all have their hand out and this book helps to prove that assertion.

This is a very important book and folks should spend the credit, listen to it, and start voting out these folks. It is clear the writer does not have a political axe to grind because he blames both parties for the endless stream of Wall Street insiders appointed to the Treasury department. IT is very clear that the Treasury Department puts Wall Street first, even when they commit fraud – while the rest of us go to jail for the same crimes they commit daily……

GET THIS BOOK. INVESTIGATE THE WRITER. HE IS THE REAL DEAL.

Sad, discouraging story

If you could sum up Bailout in three words, what would they be?

Barofsky shows how infinitely corrupt the politicians are. Is there still hope?

What did you like best about this story?

What is there to like? The politicians are ruining a remarkable social experiment. If our system survives, our children are lucky.

Have you listened to any of Joe Barrett’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

No

Nice honest insider view

Mr. Barofsky presents a no nonsense first person account of the events leading to the housing collapse. Certainly a great read for anyone just starting to venture in to the subject. I only have one historically factual critique and a small handful of opinion based ones. First, his lack of acknowledging that the issue did not start with banks but with forced actions in the Carter, Reagan, and Clinton administrations. This oversight greatly shifts the focus of origination of blame. My primary personal one is his insistence that the government did not do enough yet lays out how the government continually botched it out of ineptitude and cronyism over and over. I will applaud Mr. Barofsky in that he pulled no punches. He did not cover for Republicans as a Republican appointee and was brutally honest about the Obama administration even though he is a registered Democrat and served under President Obama. Overall I enjoyed the book and will probably listen to it a few more times.

Swamp

This book is the epitome of why we need to drain the swamp. We need to get the evil, corrupt, heathenous elitists out of Washington and prosecuted. Neil brings this to light in the book.

EYE OPENING READ TO HOW CORRUPT AMERICA IS

Would you listen to Bailout again? Why?

I definately will, because Neil points out the falacy within our democratic system.

Any additional comments?

I wish he would cover more on the Auto Bailout and how they terminated businesses unjustly

Every American Should Read This

If you are an American, you need to read this. It will truly frighten you to learn just how much the government was working AGAINST you when the financial markets got in trouble... UNLESS you're the CEO of a big bank, and then the government is actually YOUR BEST FRIEND! It truly amazes me how the big banks can break laws, make risky bets, and walk all over the average citizen, and yet our government REWARDS them for it!! This is stuff that would send any "average" citizen to jail, and it's getting the big banks (and their CEOs) REWARDED. Yes, a few trillion in free money, for doing nothing, is a reward.

Before reading this book, I knew it was bad, but WOW!! It is much worse than I thought. Bravo to Barofsky for having the balls to write this.

It is non-political, fair, and fact-filled. What's really impressive is how the author took a subject that is boring, and over most people's heads, and made it exciting and easy to comprehend. You don't need an MBA to enjoy this book... even though what our government did to us should make you sick.

Narrator is great.