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.

must read

What made the experience of listening to Bailout the most enjoyable?

finding out what happened in the treasurary

What about Joe Barrett’s performance did you like?

very easy to listen to

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

yes

Any additional comments?

must read for every American citizen

How the Treasury Foamed the Runway for Foreclosure

The author provides an interesting insider's view of the workings of the Treasury in the months and early years after the financial collapse. This is a surprisingly interesting story that reveals how tightly coupled the Treasury is to Wallstreet. The revolving door ensures that the priority of the Treasury following the crises was to prop up the WallStreet and the Banks. Programs that were intended to help homeowners caught up in the crises were implemented by Treasury in such a way that they had a completely different purpose. Rather than restructuring mortgages to benefit the distressed homeowner the plan intention was to spread out the foreclosures in time such that the banks would have the capacity to process them. The goal was to maximize the return to banks and mortgage processing companies rather than to help the homeowners. This is but one example from the book.

My take away from the book was that the Treasury has been thoroughly captured by the Banks and Wallstreet and no longer works in the interest of most of the tax payers.

Highly Recommended!

Must Read on Wall Street and TARP

I've read most of the books on the mortgage swindles. This is the best, most interesting and names names. Barofsky is my new hero. He also is self deprecating, humorous and gives credit where due. The snakes in Washington do not compare to the drug runners in Columbia he prosecuted.

Bailout: An Inside Account of How Washington Aband

The protagonist simply walks through his days inside Washington. Sometimes it is sad, ironic, or just so painfully stupid you have to laugh. Tongue in cheek, I feel as if the inmates aka, the government, are in a cage and we are watching them.

A truly insider story of dysfunctional government

The light of transparency has finally been shined on the bank bailouts. We still run the risk of major problems given the way large institutions are allowed to gamble with government money and tje lack of regulation on bank transactions.

Great Read / Gives New perspective

What did you love best about Bailout?

I loved that it gives an insider perspective of what was going on during the bailout process. And I have to say the news media left out a lot of details.

The Most Poignant & Thorough Treatise on the Bailout & TARP so far!

I found this audiobook to substantiate my reading of’The Creature from Jekyll Island.’ Another must read. Mr. Barofsky speaks from first hand experience the grift, good ol’ boy network, and corruption of our government’s continued protection of insiders-to the detriment of the citizenry.

What makes this most repugnant, is the bailout money is our taxpayer contribution/our taxpayer dollars squandered. AIG, Citigroup, Bank of America et al. are 23% larger while you and I lost our homes, are financially ruined, businesses shuttered, families ripped apart due to financial despair.

This should be made into a textbook that EVERY middle and high school must study. We don’t have a shadow government. This glad-handing continues to be practiced in plain sight.

Shame on Geitner, shame on Obama, shame on Bernake shame on us for turning a blind eye to ‘business as usual.’

This is the Mandrake Mechanism at work!

Sanctimonious Ramblings

What did you like best about Bailout? What did you like least?

Internal audit can perform a valuable function. The author came across as a bitter sole who confused audit with strategy and big picture with process control. A very valuable function to have in place, particularly given the size of dollars involved. But the author seems to confuse his function with the vision and actions (sometimes wrong or misguided) that were taken in the midst of a crisis. All in all, a waste of time spent listening to this.

Would you ever listen to anything by Neil Barofsky again?

No