A Stalled Counterrevolution

Today, however, orthodoxy has come to mean doing whatever it takes to revive the Wall Street casino. The plan recently announced by Treasury Secretary Geithner and Fed Chair Ben Bernanke is intended not to drive the money changers from the temple but to lend them public funds so that they can double down on their bets. The Fed’s own balance sheet will quadruple. The one common thread that links the failed central bankers of Ahamed’s tale with the folly of Geithner and Bernanke is that all were working hand in glove with private financial elites.

The economic ideology of laissez-faire has been shattered, but the political power of Wall Street is oddly intact...