Although November returned a divided Congress and exposed a divided country, Americans still agree on one thing: Even during this season of giving, we hate the bailouts. Treasury officials seem to get that, so during the past several months they’ve quietly sold off most of their remaining shares in small banks. The sale of these securities — remnants of $205 billion in TARP investments — will result in modest losses.
While the overall bank capital program will still turn a profit, this is the kind of story the government hopes will be buried deep in the business pages. Even “good” news like selling the government’s last shares in insurance giant AIG — and recouping the entire amount taxpayers put up — prompts a certain amount of public hand-wringing. Four years after the biggest of the bailouts, federal policy makers are still stewing over the choices they made four years ago — and struggling to put supposedly “temporary” measures of 2008 behind them.
Comments
... enough with Sununu OpEds
No one liked the TARP, not "conservatives" not "liberals". Nor did anyone want a depression. That's why folks held their nose and voted for it. Now Mr. ideologue comes along and says enough of this "saving the country". As old as I am you'd think I could no longer be stunned when ideology runs smack into reality and then refuses to budge. Ideologues like Sununu don't care what happens to the country they only care whether their pet belief system is in charge. If Mr. Sununu has nothing better to say than this nonsense he should just quit writing.
Unfortunately the first TARP was pushed by a CLUELESS John McCain, who helped ensure his own defeat by insisting that his fellow Republican Senators vote for it. Democrats were only too happy to play along.
Lest readers believe that the writer is objective in his opinion, realize that "Sununu was appointed by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to serve on the Congressional Oversight Panel (COP) for the Troubled Asset Relief Program funds, whose purpose is to assess how the TARP program is working, in order to help Congress determine whether to continue injecting capital into the financial sector." (Wikipedia)
We shouidl be thanking then CEO of AIG? I think he's lucky to be outside of prison.
We should cease calling it a bailout of the banks. The government gave to the banks what the borrowers didn’t. Now the government is trying to get the rich to reimburse it. It should be called what it is. A bailout of the borrowers.
Be honest, John, open up your financial books to a forensic financial investigator and let's find out how your financial behind was saved by the original, 2008, Republican ( remember Hank Paulsen was Treasury Secretary ) proposed TARP. Also remember he proposed an amendment that called for "no" investigative groups on the "brilliant" CEO's et al, that was dropped before final passage. The Whitey Bulger "get out of jail free card" in that hedgefund Monoploy Game for billionaires. To quote a famous American, "You Can Not Be Serious!!!" John McEnroe.
John forgot about (and the bloggers don't know about)
the REAL people who are bailing out banks day after day. The UNELECTED Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve. Quantitative Easing, "Buying" back the Fed's own newly printed Treasury Bonds in order to "Loan" more money to banks. it's like a money laundering scheme. There is never any complaints from Democrats about this policy. This money printing by the FED is so bad that other countries, especially the Swiss National bank, and now the Bank of Japan are devaluing their currencies to counteract all of the US dollar selling.