Joe Stiglitz, Mainstream?

In his op-ed in this morning's NYT, Joe Stiglitz ends up just regurgitating all the superficial mainstream arguments about the Geithner plan: it's a backdoor bailout for banks, Treasury wants investors to "overpay" for toxic assets, nationalization is the solution, yada, yada, yada. I never thought I'd see the day that Joe Stiglitz, of all people, sounded downright bland.

Luckily, as if to confirm his authorship, Stiglitz throws in some of his trademark fudging of the facts. He writes:

[T]he F.D.I.C. has taken control of failing banks before, and done it well. It has even nationalized large institutions like Continental Illinois (taken over in 1984, back in private hands a few years later).

Whoa, a "few years" later? It took the FDIC seven years to get rid of Continental Illinois. Hardly a model of successful bank nationalizations.