Private asset managers designed and ran government bailout programs

Evidence

The template of “market-maker of last resort” began with the Paulson-Geithner improvisation of having the New York Fed assume $30 billion of the worst assets from Bear-Stearns before selling the firm cheaply to JP Morgan, and then hiring Black Rock to supervise and manage the scheme. … This set the pattern for what became the “market based rescue,” or what might be deemed a newfangled privatization of government rescue of the financial sector. Indeed, many of the programs were not only outsourced, but even designed by private firms such as Black Rock and Trust Company of the West. — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 944

Categorization

• XREF: Parallels the reader’s notes on externalization and institutional design — the state commissioning private firms to design policy rather than administering it itself. — connects to: Government bailouts prevent capitalist crises from restoring profitability — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 801; Banks with Fed directorships were more likely to receive TARP funds — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 2083; Crisis rescue shifted private sector insolvency onto sovereign state accounts — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 49 (+1 more)