Obama's $700 billion bank bailout a failure...............
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- ayipis
- added this
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-tarp-20100923,0,4625198.story
Reporting from Washington —
As one of the most controversial chapters in U.S. economic history draws to a close, the Obama administration and its critics are writing very different obituaries of the $700-billion fund that bailed out Wall Street and the domestic auto industry.
Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said the much-maligned Troubled Asset Relief Program "succeeded in ways that none of us could have imagined." And Herbert M. Allison Jr., who resigned Wednesday as TARP's head, said the fund laid the foundation for the nation's recovery — "at a fraction of the cost that was originally anticipated."
The program formally ends Oct. 3, exactly two years after its enactment by a panic-stricken Congress as the swift-moving financial crisis threatened to plunge the world into another Great Depression.
After initial concerns that most if not all of the $700 billion in taxpayer money would never be recovered, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office recently estimated that TARP would cost taxpayers $66 billion.
The fund's biggest initiative, injecting $205 billion in more than 700 banks nationwide, is now projected to make nearly $10 billion in profit. Almost three-fourths of that money has been repaid along with dividends and the sale of stock options the government received with the cash injections.
Despite the deep anger over the bailout that has made TARP a four-letter word to many, the emerging consensus among economists is that the unprecedented program succeeded in helping stem the financial crisis.
"It's probably the best federal program that we've done that's been despised," said Douglas J. Elliott, an economics fellow at the Brookings Institution. "There's a huge disconnect between the public perception of it …and what it actually accomplished. It was a very important part of avoiding a true financial meltdown."
But critics charge that any losses are still too large for taxpayers, and that TARP's cost can't be measured just by dollars and cents.
Reporting from Washington —
As one of the most controversial chapters in U.S. economic history draws to a close, the Obama administration and its critics are writing very different obituaries of the $700-billion fund that bailed out Wall Street and the domestic auto industry.
Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said the much-maligned Troubled Asset Relief Program "succeeded in ways that none of us could have imagined." And Herbert M. Allison Jr., who resigned Wednesday as TARP's head, said the fund laid the foundation for the nation's recovery — "at a fraction of the cost that was originally anticipated."
The program formally ends Oct. 3, exactly two years after its enactment by a panic-stricken Congress as the swift-moving financial crisis threatened to plunge the world into another Great Depression.
After initial concerns that most if not all of the $700 billion in taxpayer money would never be recovered, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office recently estimated that TARP would cost taxpayers $66 billion.
The fund's biggest initiative, injecting $205 billion in more than 700 banks nationwide, is now projected to make nearly $10 billion in profit. Almost three-fourths of that money has been repaid along with dividends and the sale of stock options the government received with the cash injections.
Despite the deep anger over the bailout that has made TARP a four-letter word to many, the emerging consensus among economists is that the unprecedented program succeeded in helping stem the financial crisis.
"It's probably the best federal program that we've done that's been despised," said Douglas J. Elliott, an economics fellow at the Brookings Institution. "There's a huge disconnect between the public perception of it …and what it actually accomplished. It was a very important part of avoiding a true financial meltdown."
But critics charge that any losses are still too large for taxpayers, and that TARP's cost can't be measured just by dollars and cents.
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- groups:
- Community, Greatest Depression
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- tags:
- DNC, liberals are idiots
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ThatCrazyLibertarian [removed]
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ThatCrazyLibertarian [removed]
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misfit20
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ThatCrazyLibertarian:
Might as well ask MTV to bring back the music videos while you're at it
- 1 year ago
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misfit20
