In June 2011, here:
I studied the financial meltdown and concluded on my own that we needed to do something drastic, yes. When the concept of TARP was first presented to the public, I was willing to go along with it. But then when the administration started to implement it on a discretionary basis, picking winners and losers and also directing funds to General Motors and others that had nothing to do with the financial system, that's where I totally disagreed.
We should -- the government should not be selecting winners and losers, and I don't believe in this concept of too big to fail. If they fail, the free market will figure out who's going to pick the up the pieces.
In October 2011 here:
CAIN: I have said before that we were in a crisis at the end of 2008 with this potential financial meltdown. I supported the concept of TARP, but then, when this administration used discretion and did a whole lot of things that the American people didn't like, I was then against it. So yes, and I'm owning up to that.
Now, getting back to the gentleman's question in terms of what we need to do, we need to get government out of the way. It starts with making sure that we can boost this economy and then reform Dodd-Frank and reform a lot of these other regulations that have gotten in the way --
COOPER: Time.
CAIN: -- and let the market do it just like Mitt has talked about.
So Herman's story now is that he is upset that winners and losers were picked under TARP by the Obama regime. Bailing out banks was OK. GM? Not so much.
To Herman, however, picking winners and losers just among the banks doesn't seem to matter, where TARP obviously was used to pick winners and losers in that industry. Just ask all the sound banks who've had to ante up advance FDIC insurance fund premiums to restore the depleted DIF used to help the failing and see how they feel about all the special treatment the big bad boys received at their expense.
Here is Herman just three weeks after passage of TARP in October of 2008, raising no objection whatsoever to the new strategy of picking winners in the banking industry:
[I]nstead of buying toxic mortgage-related assets of banks as originally proposed, the Treasury has changed tactics and will buy equity positions called preferred stocks, which gives us as taxpayers an ownership stake in their success for a limited period of time.
Herman is making things up as he goes on many issues, editing his positions as he becomes aware of the inconsistencies of his own statements.
Not surprising, but not very encouraging.
