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

Neil Barofsky's account of the Treasury's handling of the $700 billion TARP bailout fund is indeed a highly worrying and eye-opening story of mishandling, underhand protection of vested interests, hostility and deviousness amongst government departments and Presidential appointees, and endemic corruption. If all was as stated by the author then the US taxpayers have again been 'taken to the cleaners' and their interests subordinated to those of Wall Street.In this respect Barofsky's revelations about the conduct, demeanour, preponderance to coarse language, and motives of The Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner are very worrying, particularly as very similar sentiments were recently expressed by the highly respected former FDIC Chairman, Sheila Bair in her much acclaimed book 'A Bull By The Horns'.A very readable, interesting and informative work on behind the scenes of the biggest 'give-away' in economic history. However, but whether or not the revelations will resonate around and lessons be learned by the Politicians and will they ever be able to release themselves from the stranglehold in which they are held by Wall Street, is most doubtful?

Very readable, if slightly scary, account of Barofsky's time as inspector of the TARP programme. Although his view is now pretty mainstream, and there is slight element of hindsight, it is a sad indictment of many who were really making the decisions who were either protecting themselves politically or too close to the banks to see where there could be problems.

Fascinating read. Hard work trying to keep track of so many individuals, but I read it twice and second time was even better. How can the public stop these people stealing so much? How can these excessive bonus payments be stopped?

Excellent book, well written. The bailout happened and press coverage at the time gave me some indication that the situation was very severe. This book goes beyond and brings not only the terrible financial perspective but also the details of the agreements that saved the world financial system...(every penny of it). To summarize them all, everything to the banks, AIG, Chrysler, GM, etc; nothing to homeowners. Trillions of dollars flying around backed by taxpayers. After this book and despite all the good that President Obama accomplished, I am starting to think that the bailout - as implemented - was not only fear but political corruption on its highest episode.

Not much to add to the most positive reviews already written here. I've just realized that the reviews I'm talking about were written on amazon.com and that's why they are not marked on amazon.ca I'm sure that Canadians have read and are reading this book too but maybe they are not taking it as personally as I do.I'm glad that I'm far from being alone in my praise for this book. This is a must read for anyone trying to understand what kind of a world we live in today. My blood was boiling for the entire time it took to read this book and I almost went into a depression. I don't know if I'm reading this kind of books because I'm depressed or is the other way around, but the fact is that there are tons of books now documenting what happened before and after the financial crisis in 2008 and explaining why. Just before reading this one I read "The Big Short" and "Boomerang" by Michael Lewis which at least made me laugh sometimes, but then, after "Bailout" I went straight into "Predator Nation: Corporate Criminals, Political Corruption, and the Hijacking of America", bought and seen the movie "Inside Job", both by Charles Ferguson and ended up with Joseph Stiglitz in "Freefall: America, Free Markets and the Sinking of the World Economy". I'm still in freefall or so I feel and it doesn't help that I've just finished "The Wizard of Lies: Bernie Madoff and the Death of Trust" by Diana B. Henriques and last week I've got into "The Trouble with Billionaires" (by Linda McQuaig & Neil Brooks).This is beyond sad and scary. The scary part is that all these authors cannot be dismissed as alarmists, communists or ignorants; they are all either reputable journalists, world renowned economists or in the case of Neil Barofsky, a professor of law and an honest and outstanding prosecutor. The sad part...is that even they are pointing only to the tip of the iceberg.Anyway, after all of these I think I should see something uplifting, something joyful...Les Miserables will do.