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Where did the swine flu vaccinations go? They went the way of the “stimulus money” – that is to say, they were sent here, and shipped there. And, of course, they were “administered” and “disbursed” and “distributed” by high ranking officials who work in very important positions in vital departments of our U.S. Government. But nobody in our government – no one, specific individual – can say with certainty how many flu shots there are, or where they are, or where they might be headed. And the same is true for the billions of dollars that were entailed in President...

Mulder and Scully are on the hunt for Harry Reid's phantom jobs.

Emailed to me by a contact in Congress. November 18, 2009 The Honorable Barney Chairman, House Financial Services Committee 2129 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 The Honorable Christopher Dodd Chairman, Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, & Urban Affairs 534 Dirksen Senate Office Building Washington, DC 20510 Dear Chairman Frank and Chairman Dodd: In light of Tuesday’s report released by the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Assets Relief Program, Neil Barofsky – Factors Affecting Efforts to Limit Payments to AIG Counterparties – we write to request your assistance in addressing major issues displayed prominently in the report. On...

(snip) "We participated in things that were clearly wrong and have reason to regret," said Goldman Sachs’ Lloyd Blankfein. "We apologize." Blankfein had told a British newspaper the other day that Goldman was doing “God’s work”. That caused a firestorm online. (snip)

Special Inspector General for TARP (aka "SIG TARP") Neil Barofsky said something we've all known for a while: the government gave away the farm when AIG failed. If you recall, AIG's failure meant that the companies on the other side of all of its contracts (counterparties) were going to be left holding the bag. Under normal cases of bankruptcy, the court would impose haircuts to the amount of money due to counterparties, but because AIG didn't actually declare bankruptcy, the counterparties claimed that they were owed 100 cents of every dollar. The only bank that even considered taking a haircut...

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) could have suffered dramatic losses if the federal government had not intervened to prop up American International Group Inc (AIG.N), according to a government report. The report by the special inspector general for the government bailout program raises doubts about Goldman's previous claims that it was hedged against potential AIG losses. Last fall, as the financial services industry stood on the brink of collapse, the government stepped in with an unprecedented effort to rescue the system. AIG was among the companies that received billions of dollars from the U.S. Treasury's Troubled...

LONDON (MarketWatch) -- Goldman Sachs said late Tuesday that it would provide $500 million to support small businesses, hours after its CEO Lloyd Blankfein apologized for the group's role in the global financial crisis. Goldman has faced growing criticism over its likely massive bonus payouts as the U.S. economy remains in turmoil. It has also received, and subsequently paid back, $10 billion of aid from the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

When the New York Fed renegotiated its original $85 billion deal to bail out AIG last year, it "effectively" transferred tens of billions dollars of cash from the federal government directly into the coffers of the AIG’s counterparties, according to an audit by TARP Inspector General Neil M. Barofsky.

WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.) urged a group of chief executives on Tuesday to think of ways to help small businesses and extend credit to help heal the economy. The Arizona Republican acknowledged that these aren't the responsibilities of big businesses, but he talked about how angry Americans are about financial institutions getting bailed out while they are struggling, and he said access to credit is a big issue.

In a surprise move, the head of GMAC Financial Services -- the giant, taxpayer-supported auto lender -- was ousted Monday. The forced resignation of Alvaro de Molina after only 19 months as chief executive caps a series of clashes with regulators and mounting board frustration over his turnaround plans for the Detroit company. GMAC has received $12.5 billion in taxpayer money since December 2008 in two installments, giving the U.S. government a 35.4% stake and growing power over the firm's trajectory. Government officials said they made no suggestion to GMAC's board to dump Mr. de Molina. "That was 100% GMAC's...

Firm plans to retire $6.7 billion loan years before it is due General Motors is expected to announce on Monday that it will begin repaying its debt to the United States next month, years earlier than required. The nation's largest automaker plans to pay $1 billion per quarter until the $6.7 billion loan is repaid, according to a source familiar with the matter. The plan does not cover all of the $50 billion the United States has invested in the company. How much the government will receive on its investment depends on GM's eventual stock value. In exchange for the...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Leading U.S. bank regulator Sheila Bair said on Friday that the government's capital injections into the largest banks was "probably not a good thing." Bair, the chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp, said the billions of dollars of capital infusions last year had a terrible impact on public perception of the financial industry and government regulators. "I think at the time it sounded like the right thing to do and, again, it was part of an international effort, but I just see all the problems it's created," Bair said during an interview with PBS NewsHour. "I...

WASHINGTON – The federal deficit hit a record for October as the new budget year began where the old one ended: with the government awash in red ink. Economists worry that if such deficits continue it could push up interest rates, further dragging on the fragile economic recovery. The Treasury Department said Thursday that the deficit for October totaled $176.4 billion, even higher than the $150 billion imbalance that economists expected. The deficit for the 2009 budget year, which ended on Sept. 30, set an all-time record in dollar terms of $1.42 trillion. That was $958 billion above the 2008...

First, the nub of the WH idea: The White House is looking to cut its budget deficit by using some unspent funds from the U.S. government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), the Wall Street Journal said, citing people familiar with the matter. Members of the Obama administration are still debating the idea, the paper said, adding that the administration would still like to keep some of the unspent money in case of emergencies. A U.S. Treasury source told Reuters that it was shifting the focus of the TARP program toward helping small business and the housing sector rather than large...

IF THIS DOESN'T HACK YOU OFF, NOTHING WILL!!! Take your blood pressure meds, a Prozac and click on the link. It was described thus by an earlier critic of the madness we're now living through: “By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method, they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and, while the process impoverishes many (THAT'D BE MOST OF US), it actually enriches some.” (THAT'D BE GOLDDMAN-SACHS!) John Maynard Keynes, The Economic Consequences of The Peace, 1920 Obozo and Bawney Fwank are...

Disclaimer: we're talking politics here, not personal stuff . . . If there's a bigger sourpuss in Congress than Barney Frank, I wouldn't want to meet him. On MSNBC this evening, the dyspeptic Member from Massachusetts got into it with, of all people, Ed Schultz. You might think the two libs would make beautiful progressive music together, but what made this spat especially entertaining was that Barney found himself being attacked . . . from the left. The topic was the billions in bonuses awarded by Wall Street firms that had received TARP money. Schultz's beef was that Congress blew...

CIT Group Inc. filed for bankruptcy Sunday afternoon, after getting approval on most of the details from its creditors. At risk, though, is $2.3 B in taxpayer bailout money, much of which is unlikely to ever be recovered, thus making it the single biggest loss for TARP. CIT is the fifth-largest bankruptcy in the history of the country, in terms of assets, and the company has posted more than $5 billion in losses in the last nine quarters. And once again with the bankruptcy of CIT, Goldman shows the world it is run by a sharper crew of money men...

The $2.3 billion in taxpayer money spent to save CIT Group Inc. is likely to be wiped out, as the lender prepares to file for bankruptcy protection in a high-stakes restructuring plan aimed at keeping the firm in business. People familiar with the plan said CIT, a major lender to small businesses, intends to file for bankruptcy-court protection in New York within days, perhaps as early as Sunday or Monday. Financial firms such as CIT have historically been sold off or wound down after a Chapter 11 filing, for fear that customers will draw down lending lines and cause a...

Federal Regulators Close 9 Banks TIM PARADIS and MARCY GORDON NEW YORK – Regulators shut nine banks Friday, including Los Angeles-based California National, as the still-weak economy produces a stream of loan defaults. The banks were units of privately held FBOP Corp., a Chicago-based bank holding company. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation said U.S. Bank in Minneapolis agreed to assume the deposits and most of the assets of the banks. The banks are mostly in the West and had combined assets of $19.4 billion at the end of September. The closings boost the number of failed U.S. banks this year...

One of the penalties I pay for living on the North Shore is having underemployed investment bankers as neighbors. Smart enough guys, only a few years ago capable of buying large houses with cash, now left to rake leaves and shuttle kids around. A neighboring bond trader wandered over to our house earlier this week with a family carload for a noisy dinner (beef, noodles, and beer if you must know). I mentioned that he has been around home a lot assuming a lack of work in his trading area. Somewhat surprisingly I was wrong. A lack of pay has...

Francis Cianfrocca joins Ben Domenech for the Monday, October 26th edition of Coffee & Markets, a series of brief morning podcasts on politics and the marketplace, now appearing as well on WashingtonTimes.com. Today’s podcast focuses on Neil Barofsky’s IG report covering the uncontrolled ramifications of the TARP program, its lack of anti-fraud measures, and how much the taxpayers will end up paying for it all. Items discussed include this DC Examiner editorial: Congress put American taxpayers on the hook for $700 billion last year when it approved the massive bailout to paper over the imprudent lending decisions of nine Wall...

BILLIONAIRE investor George Soros at the weekend became the latest high-profile financier to wade into the bonus debate as he claimed the backlash against banking fat cats on lucrative pay deals is justified. Speaking in an interview about large profits reported in recent weeks by Wall Street’s biggest banks, Soros said: “Those earnings are not the achievement of risk-takers. These are gifts, hidden gifts from the government, so I don’t think that those monies should be used to pay bonuses.” He added: “There’s a resentment which I think is justified.” Soros, chairman of Soros Fund Management, also said in the...

Yes, he’s doing the job of dictating to companies which took government (read: taxpayers’) money exactly how much they are allowed to compensate their top execs. And next he’s going to look at the paychecks of the smaller fellows, too. Before he does that, however, perhaps he should take a look at the compensation package received by the new CFO of Freddie Mac, Ross Kari.

This week Kenneth R. Feinberg, popularly known as the White House Pay CZAR, announced his plan to cut the pay for the top 25 earners at seven companies that received federal government help. On average cut total these executives had their compensation cut by about 50 percent. The companies are Citigroup, Bank of America, American International Group, General Motors, Chrysler and the financing arms of the two automakers. This week Kenneth R. Feinberg, popularly known as the White House Pay CZAR, announced his plan to cut the pay for the top 25 earners at seven companies that received federal government...

During the boom years, New York–based small-business lender CIT group went heavy into the risky subprime loan business, under the guidance of CEO Jeffrey Peek. This past year, after it all came crashing down, CIT accepted $2.3 billion in TARP money and then went and asked the administration for more. They were denied. ("Their Plan A was: Seek assistance from the government. And their Plan B was: Ask again," a senior Obama administration official told the Journal at the time.) Absent a plan, the company spiraled toward bankruptcy, and last week Peek was forced to resign. Now his wife, Liz...

WASHINGTON (CNN) – The banking system today may be in a more precarious position than it was a year ago, the man charged with overseeing a $700 billion bailout program said Wednesday. Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general managing the Troubled Asset Relief Program, told CNN's Wolf Blitzer on Wednesday that the government's decision to support bank mergers over the past year may have put the U.S. economy more at risk. "These banks that were too big to fail are now bigger," Barofsky said. "Government has sponsored and supported several mergers that made them larger and that guarantee, that implicit...

Congress put American taxpayers on the hook for $700 billion last year when it approved the massive bailout to paper over the imprudent lending decisions of nine Wall Street giants: Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, State Street and the Bank of NY Mellon. The bailout was essential to save the nation from a complete economic meltdown. Or so insisted President George W. Bush, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. One year later, however, a little-noted report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office...

Job losses as far as the eyes can see in all 57 states that the president visited during his campaign plus the two states that he didn’t get to, Alaska and Hawaii. "Over the last 15 months, we’ve traveled to every corner of the United States. I’ve now been in 57 states? I think one left to go. Alaska and Hawaii, I was not allowed to go to even though I really wanted to visit, but my staff would not justify it."—President Barry Hussein Soetoro Seriously though, President Soetoro you promised that the $789 billion dollars in TARP moneys would...

Government regulators threatened to remove top Bank of America executives if they backed out of a buyout of failing brokerage giant Merrill Lynch, and offered to provide taxpayer funds to compensate for Merrill's poor performance, according to company records obtained by The Washington Times. The documents - e-mails between bank executives and their outside attorneys as well as board meeting "talking points" prepared for then-Bank of America Chief Executive Ken Lewis - offer new insight into the hardball tactics that produced one of the biggest deals negotiated during the late 2008 global financial crisis, one that is still reverberating on...

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- The government has spent trillions to rescue the banking system from the brink of disaster, but the biggest cost may be the loss in the government's credibility from an understandably distrustful and angry public, according to a quarterly report released Wednesday by the congressional watchdog over the bank bailout.

The auto industry, AIG and other struggling recipients of the government's $700 billion Wall Street bailout will make it "extremely unlikely" that taxpayers will receive a full return on their investments, says a new report by the Treasury Department's independent watchdog. About 17 percent of Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) loans issued since the program began a year ago have been repaid, according to a 252-page report released Wednesdayby TARP's Special Inspector General Neil Barofsky.

WASHINGTON — The man who watches over the $700 billion in government money given to banks and other institutions to avert a financial collapse said Wednesday he thinks it's too early to say how much will be repaid to the taxpayers. Just as the Obama administration prepares to announce a new TARP-like program for small community banks, Inspector General Neil Barofsky said he believes that "it's unrealistic to think we're going to get all of that money back." The Treasury Department has spent more than $454 billion through TARP programs. Forty-seven recipients have paid back nearly $73 billion. That means...

Steps taken by the Treasury Department to implement the $700 billion financial bailout program have undermined the credibility of the U.S. government, a top government watchdog said in a report released on Wednesday. Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general over the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), as the financial bailout is known officially, criticized the Treasury Department for failing to require banks to detail exactly how they are using the money. Barofsky also criticized the Treasury Department for not being more forthright about how and why it selected the first nine recipients of TARP money. “Treasury’s actions in this regard...

Government regulators threatened to remove top Bank of America executives in December if they didn't acquire Merrill Lynch, but also agreed to provide taxpayer funds to compensate for Merrill's poor performance, according to company records obtained by The Washington Times. The documents -- e-mails between bank executives and their outside lawyers as well as board-meeting talking points prepared for then-Chief Executive Ken Lewis -- indicate that former Treasury Secretary Henry Mr. Paulson Jr. and Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben S. Bernanke promised to give the bank taxpayer bailout funds to compensate them for Merrill's poor performance. Summaries written by the...

Even as the economy continues to struggle, much of Wall Street is minting money — and looking forward again to hefty bonuses. Many Americans wonder how this can possibly be. How can some banks be prospering so soon after a financial collapse, even as legions of people worry about losing their jobs and their homes? It may come as a surprise that one of the most powerful forces driving the resurgence on Wall Street is not the banks but Washington. Many of the steps that policy makers took last year to stabilize the financial system — reducing interest rates to...

There were over 900,000 foreclosures in the third quarter as Foreclosures rise 5 percent from summer to fall. The number of households caught up in the foreclosure crisis rose more than 5 percent from summer to fall as a federal effort to assist struggling borrowers was overwhelmed by a flood of defaults among people who lost their jobs. The foreclosure crisis affected nearly 938,000 properties in the July-September quarter, compared with about 890,000 in the prior three months, according to a report released Thursday by RealtyTrac Inc. That puts foreclosure-related filings on a pace to hit about 3.5 million this...

Goldman Sachs is considering donating in excess of $1bn (£627m) to charity in an attempt to quell the growing furore over the likely size of its 2009 bonus pot. The investment bank which is set to report its results for the three months to September on Thursday, is understood to be giving serious thought to some form of large philanthropic donation. The aim of the donation, first disclosed by Henry Blodget's Business Insider blog, would be to deflect the likely row come at the end of the year. By then Goldman's total compensation pot is expected to be a record...

My friend has received notice he is eligible for TARP money through Wells Fargo where he has his home loan. They qualify for 30%-50% reduction. He lost his job, his wife lost her job and they both found new jobs but each at a lesser salary.Their question that I have no idea how to answer is:On their TARP notice it stated their mortgage is more than double what their mortgage actually is. Their house value at the time of the mortgage was 450,000 and the TARP shows the mortgage is $935,000. I couldn't off-hand explain except to say it may...

Here was a chance for Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. to admit he was wrong, and to conclude publicly that government intervention in the private sector doesn't always result in the best of outcomes. McCain appeared on CNN's Oct. 11 "State of the Union" in a pre-recorded interview and was asked by host John King if the lackluster recovery of the economy warranted more government intervention. "The president has said he's considering new initiatives to help job creation," King said. "They passed one stimulus plan and most Republicans, including John McCain, have been pretty critical of this $787-billion stimulus passed early...

New revelations about Tim Geithner’s phone records show an appallingly small Wall Street circle. With a probe likely, Simon Johnson says the Treasury secretary needs a bailout—from Larry Summers.

One year and a week after Congress enacted legislation creating the $700 billion “Troubled Asset Relief Program,” the Treasury Department next week is expected to launch its first initiative to buy, well, troubled assets. Odd as it may be, in the year since its creation TARP has been used for just about everything but the original purpose of buying troubled, or “toxic,” mortgages and other securities from financial institutions. Now comes word that a long-planned Treasury program to acquire assets will be ready to begin. That’s bad news. Not only is the program flawed, but the emergency that spawned it...

It’s not popular with his party, but Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell is saying that the Wall Street bailout was a success – one year after the historic $700 billion vote. The Troubled Asset Relief Program has “succeeded in stabilizing the banking system,” McConnell told reporters Friday. Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1009/27851.html##ixzz0T9l2BtYV

Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP), says that despite multiple statements on Oct. 14 of last year that these nine banks were healthy and only receiving government funds for the good of the country's economy, federal officials knew otherwise.

"Today, I was listening to the Glenn Beck program and heard about Rep. Paul Kanjorski’s comments on the financial crisis that took place on September 15th, 2008. According to Mr. Kanjorski: “On Thursday [September 15] , at roughly 11 AM The Federal Reserve noticed a tremendous draw down of money market accounts in the USA to the tune of $550 Billion dollars in a matter of an hour or two. Money was being removed electronically. The treasury tried to help with $150 Billion, but could not stem the tide. It was an electronic run on the banks The treasury intervened...

WASHINGTON - Mitt Romney had already sent out invitations for his Phoenix fund-raiser, offering supporters the chance to meet him in a Chase Field luxury box over a $300-per-person lunch or a $3,000 VIP reception. But when former rival John McCain called with an offer to be listed as host for the event in his hometown, Romney happily went back to the printer for a new invitation with McCain’s name emblazoned on it. Yesterday, McCain’s gesture helped Romney’s political action committee raise about $80,000. It also consummated an 18-month rapprochement between two competitors who battled for the 2008 GOP presidential...

The Administration’s proposal on the resolution of systemically-important financial institutions, if adopted, would lead to the creation of ‘zombie banks’ that can neither die nor restructure sufficiently to be viable.

It turns out that Najibullah Zazi, the person arrested in connection in with a suspected New York City subway bomb plot, was able to obtain over $50,000 in loans from the Bank of America, Chase, Capital One, Discover and Citibank despite having no assets to pledge nor a steady work history. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner acknowledged that “some banks may have been a little lax in vetting borrowers, but let me remind you, we’re in a recession and it is the Administration’s policy to encourage banks to push the money the government lent them out the door as fast as...

It's 'extremely unlikely' that taxpayers will see a full return on their investment, Neil Barofsky, special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, tells the Senate Banking Committee. Reporting from Washington - The Treasury is unlikely to get back the full amount of money lent under the Troubled Asset Relief Program despite a recent spate of repayments from large banks, warned the program's watchdog. The program "played a significant role" in rescuing the financial system from a meltdown, Neil Barofsky, special inspector general for TARP, testified before the Senate Banking Committee on Thursday. But it was "extremely unlikely that...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Treasury officials and regulators are weighing a fresh round of bailouts for banks that were deemed too risky to qualify for earlier aid. Representatives from the Treasury Department, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and House Financial Services Committee discussed the plan by phone Thursday, said California Bankers Association Chairman Dan Doyle, who was on the call. Small community banks are struggling as commercial real estate and other loans go sour. Officials and industry representatives are considering how to get money to those banks, Doyle said Friday.

The government is failing to disclose the full details of how the $700 billion bailout of the financial sector has been implemented, the program's top government watchdog will say on Thursday. Neil Barofsky, the Special Inspector General over the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), will testify to Congress that the government's "basic attitude" on the transparency and accountability of the program "remains a significant frustration."