Dean Baker: A Trillion Dollars for the Banks: How About a Second Opinion?: "Suppose that Congress appropriated a modest chunk of money to have independent economists put together teams to construct alternative plans. Why not give M.I.T. professor Simon Johnson, a former chief economist of the IMF, $5 million to hire a crew to outline his preferred path? Congress could give Joe Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize winner and one-time chief economist to President Clinton, who is also a harsh critic of the Geithner plan, a similar sum to put together his own team.
These economists could develop their best plans and put them out for public consumption. Geithner's crew can then tell us why their plans are unworkable and we must instead hand over the money to banks.
Given how much money Geithner wants to spend -- putting it in the hands of the folks that brought on this economic crisis -- it would seem appropriate to first examine all the alternatives. After all, we could find out what our options are in this case for the price of just a few AIG executive bonuses. That has to be a good deal in anyone's book."
(Via Huffington Blog.)
