Why The Economy Isn't Recovering

City Journal reports:

Four years ago this fall, President George W. Bush’s Treasury department tried to create a “Super Structured Investment Vehicle” to buy up some troublesome financial instruments that few people at the time had heard of. The “Super SIV” marked the start of a financial-crisis strategy that Washington continues to pursue: pretending that bad debt is worth more than it is. This now bipartisan strategy has taken a massive toll, the latest evidence of which is the news that the country created only 18,000 jobs in June—less than 1 percent of the 14 million jobs that Americans need.

The Treasury thought—or pretended to think—that it was dodging a bullet with the Super SIV. Through the vehicle, big, healthy banks, such as Bank of America, would get together and pool $75 billion in private funds to buy up the arcane securities and derivatives that were giving the financial system a headache and thus beginning to affect the broader economy.

Great moments in central planning.