It's In The Way That You Use It

Before he was infamous for his extramarital hooking up, former Governor Eliot Spitzer was famous for making waves on Wall Street as NY's Attorney General.

He asks: "Does it strike you as odd that the American government has invested $115 billion in TARP money alone in Citibank, JPMorgan Chase, and Bank of America, fully 70 percent of their market cap ($164.5 billion, as of March 30), yet we have virtually no say in the management or behavior of these banks? Does it seem even odder that these banks are getting along extremely well with the government regulators who should be picking them apart for having destroyed the economy and financial system?"

Spitzer says: Washington had the power to regulate misbehaving banks. It just refused to use it.

Slate, April 1st.