Happy 9-15!

On the anniversary of Lehman’s collapse, and in the wake of the subsequent trillions of dollars invested in TARP and associated life preservers, one might ask how the bail-out is going.

In at least in one of its hero dimensions– making credit more available to stoke a recovery–  data from Haver Analytics and Canadian advisory Gluskin Sheff suggests not so well:  bank credit has actually contracted to an extent not seen for decades.

source: El Comite De Can Roche, via Miguel Valls Figueras

Taxpayers’ investments in the financial incumbency has famously covered out-sized bonuses, and more vexingly, it has underwritten financial consolidation:

source: Washington Post

As I’ve argued here, I believe that this consolidation is part of an unfortunate trend in the U.S. economy.  But in any case, as we gather flowers to lay at Lehman’s grave, we can note that, as yet anyway, the bail-out seems to have had at best had no positive impact on the central thing that it was meant to cure.

Happy anniversary.