Posted on 07/27/2012 11:45:40 AM PDT by Kartographer
Much has been made about Barofsky's criticism of Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, who told CBS News he is "deeply offended" by how he's portrayed in Barofsky's book Bailout: An Inside Account of How Washington Abandoned Main Street While Rescuing Wall Street.
Barofsky pulled no punches in our earlier segment about the ongoing rate-rigging scandal. (See: "I Hope We See People In Handcuffs": Neil Barofsky Weighs in on LIBOR Scandal)
In the accompanying video, we focused more on TARP's failings to live up to its promise to help individual Americans, not just the big banks.
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
PING!
TARP an abysmal failure?
I’m shocked. Just shocked!
I am “deeply offended” that Geithner and the rest of his incompetent, criminal cretins are not in federal prison.
Shove it up your smelly Obama, Geithner. The only place for stellar incompetance such as yours is in government.
It was a rousing Cloward-Piven success.
The list, Ping
Let me know if you would like to be on or off the ping list
I was not in favor of TARP, but the banks did pay TARP back.
However, what we will NEVER see back is the billions and billions and billions of dollars poured down the rat-hole of the government-sponsored enterprises Fannie and Freddie.
The left wants to demonize large banks in the minds of the sheeple in order to politically prepare for nationalizing the banks.
But they don’t want people to look at Fannie and Freddie and what the government was doing, because these are basically giant liberal slush funds who helped the Left destroy our traditional mortgage lending standards in the name of affirmative action.
They say they paid it back, but will we every really know that they did? And despite the fact that most of the government people in control of the Treasury, the Fed and other entities that controled, lent and and otherwise ran these programs were mostly exemployees, cronies, friends, investors and pals of those that ran the big banks the banks themselves are completely devoid of blame in these matters.
Stimulus through Government spending: It’s like taking water out of the deep end of the pool, pouring it in the shallow end, hoping to make the shallow end deeper.
Hmmm, banks get 800 Billion Dollars in exchange for worthless assets at super low percentage rates in TARP, they then go gamble on commodities and the stock market index because they also get more 0% FED money in QE I and II for more worthless assets which pushes them into the trillions category, they then “pay” us back on the original 800 Billion while making profit on bets funded by 0% to low percent FED money and dump their toxic assets on our backs. Then when the economy collapses, they scream for more funny money because their bets on commodities and stocks are going down without the constant infusion of FED 0% pumping.
That is like handing a criminal 1000 bucks, then handing the criminal 10000 bucks, and he peels off 1000 bucks and gives it back to you while gambling with the leftovers. His PR guy says “look, I paid you back the 1000 bucks” what is the big deal. TARP was the tip of the iceberg to this scam where fraudulent bankers were rewarded and allowed to dump their losses on our backs for guaranteed free money. This can only end badly.
They DO audit TARP. Maybe one day they’ll audit the Fed.
I would rather see government regulators be people with experience in the banking industry.
Because as a practical matter, if you exclude people with banking experience, what you’re left with as a pool of people from which to choose your regulators are left-wing professors.
This demonization of the big banks by the Left is similar to the demonization of the big health insurance companies by the Left.
Both industries are among the most regulated activities on earth, and yet the Left points to both as illustrating the “failure of unfettered capitalism” to argue for nationalization (or effective nationalization through complete government control, like ObamaCare).
Any resemblance between these industries and unfettered capitalism is purely coincidental.
The bank recapitalization portion worked great. Cascading bank failures didn't occur. The banks paid the money back, at a profit to the Treasury.
The auto portion will end up costing tens of billions. And we'll never get back the $100 billion plus that TARP gave to Fannie and Freddie. The mortgage giveaway portion was also a waste of money.
They lied? About hundreds of billions?
TARP locked in $1.4T deficits and is not stopping, and that is why they have not made a budget in 4 years. They would have to go BACK TO the last baseline budget figures of 2008 (+ 6% baseline)
The problem is the banks did not use the TARP money for which it was intended. Paulson, Kashkeri, and the Goldman Sachs cabal that ran it in the last days of the Bush Presidency allowed that to happen. Geithner merely followed what Government Sachs had done.
I just started reading Barofsky's book. It's an excellent read so far, and I will admit to more than a passing interest, as my current position has mostly to do with single family mortgage loans.
Had TARP been executed as planned, we wouldn't be in the mess we are today: those "toxic assets" are still on the books, and millions are enslaved to their seriously underwater mortgages. From where I sit, there's much more pain to be endured.
looks like the demonization of the banks is starting to come from inside:
Former Citi CEO: Break up big banks
http://www.bankrate.com/financing/banking/former-citi-ceo-break-up-big-banks/
No, banks got less than $250 billion in exchange for preferred stock and warrants.
they then go gamble on commodities and the stock market index
Banks used TARP money to increase their capital base, not to gamble.
they also get more 0% FED money in QE I and II
QE isn't loans to banks. And the Fed doesn't loan to banks at 0%. The current Discount Rate is 0.75%.
for more worthless assets which pushes them into the trillions category
The Fed only bought guaranteed debt. Debt which is trading well above par and which the Fed has huge unrealized capital gains on.
fraudulent bankers were rewarded and allowed to dump their losses on our backs for guaranteed free money.
That's funny. Banks were borrowing $2 million dollars at the Fed discount window as of Wednesday, July 25, 2012. I guess they don't need money at 0.75%.
Your math is an epic fail.
What Weill has learned the hard way is that you can’t really have a diversified financial entity that includes a deposit-taking bank and only have government tell you how to run that bank.
Government regulation will creep up to the holding company and eventually the government will be telling you how to run the entire business because it includes a deposit-taking bank.
I too think it is not healthy for there to be just a few big banks in the country controlling the market, and I am by no means demonizing the banks when I say that.
With just a few big institutions controlling things, it is too easy for the big institutions and government to de facto merge into one big mess where the fingers of the politicians like Dodd and Frank and Clinton and Obama are able to reach down into everything.
This is what we will see with the development of the health care insurance industry under ObamaCare - the consolidation of the industry into a handful of big players that are de facto instrumentalities of the government and ruled by politicians.
I would rather see a field of more smaller competitors that compete in the field of the market rather than in the field of government regulation and political favors.
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