By John Tamny of Forbes
Bank lending has declined each month for the past year. The bailouts of the banks help explain this. TARP propped up institutions that will forever be captive to the fact that government money allowed them to cheat death, their lending ability is compromised even more by looming financial regulations that are still unknown, and then most of all, the bailouts gave us capital constrained banks still suffering from horrible investments made in the past. Had the banks been allowed to go under, healthy banks would have been able to buy their assets on the cheap, and as a result would be financially able to lend more freely for being unconstrained by past mistakes
