TARP payback may not help consumers (or taxpayers)

CNN ^ | 6/9/09 | Colin Barr

[pissant]

Half of the big banks paying back federal loans are investment firms or asset managers, so lending isn't likely to pick up.

NEW YORK (Fortune) -- Don't expect TARP-free banks to unleash a torrent of loans to cash-strapped consumers.

The Treasury Department told ten big bank holding companies Tuesday that they are healthy enough to repay their federal loans. In turn, the big banks said they would repay $68 billion to Treasury's Troubled Asset Relief Program. JPMorgan Chase (JPM, Fortune 500) will be sending Treasury the biggest check, for $25 billion.

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner told Congress that the planned repayments show the "very tangible benefits" of rescue plans such as TARP. Boosting bank lending is "the ultimate measure of the success" of Treasury's financial rescue programs, Geithner told the Senate Appropriations Committee Tuesday.

[pissant]

Yet interst rates have shot up dramatically the last 3 weeks.

[Boiling Pots]

CNN is pissed that the banks who wanted to pay back their welfare prevailed over Little Timmy’s insistence that they keep the loans outstanding till the Feds determined when they would like to be paid back.

[KarlInOhio]

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner told Congress that the planned repayments show the "very tangible benefits" of rescue plans such as TARP. Boosting bank lending is "the ultimate measure of the success" of Treasury's financial rescue programs, Geithner told the Senate Appropriations Committee Tuesday.

Has the oxygen level at the Federal Reserve dropped below 15%? More than anything this shows that the TARP program really was forced on many banks who neither wanted nor needed it. Then when Obama wanted to use acceptance of TARP money as a reason for complete control of the banks, the banks needed to return it as quickly as possible.

As for making more loans, the last thing we want is for the banks to return to the "fogged mirror test" for getting a loan (if you can fog a mirror, you are alive and therefore worthy of a loan).

[Kent C]

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner told Congress that the planned repayments show the "very tangible benefits" of rescue plans such as TARP.

Liberalese Translation (as 'Boiling Pots' points out):

"You B@$tards, you're just trying to get out from under our control!!"

[Brookhaven]

The cat (or commie) is out of the bag.

After watching the Chrysler/GM debacles (including the firing of the GM CEO), a lot of these banks are probably wondering if they are next.

Anyone think trying to give the money back was triggered by the proposal to create a “pay czar” to oversee the pay of executives at banks that received TARP money?

[NotSoModerate]

"We have begun to boost new consumer and business lending by re-starting the markets for asset-backed securities that financed almost half of all lending in this country before the crisis," Geithner said. "There were more securities of this type issued the four months after we launched our effort than in the preceding nine."

I don't know much about finance, but I'm surprised they're seeing success in the asset backed securities. I would assume the only way to see some movement in asset backed securities would be high interest rates. But maybe I'm wrong, and its Geithner's genius doing it.

[Nachum]

The list, ping

[RFEngineer]

The money to payback TARP had to come from somewhere. That it was raised in the private sector by banks, then given back to the treasury, where it effectively disappears is not an invalid point. Then again, it was paying back money that was created out of thin air so maybe it’s a wash.

[KeyLargo]

Obama is taking the money and then dishing it out again to favored institutions in a never ending cycle to reward his supporters in the financial services. None of this returned money will every go towards U.S. debt. Just one more big Obama scam on taxpayers.

[TomasUSMC]

Money laundering is the practice of disguising illegally obtained funds so that they seem legal. It is a crime in many jurisdictions with varying definitions. It is a key operation of the underground economy.

Today its definition is often expanded by government and international regulators such as the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to mean any financial transaction which generates an asset or a value as the result of an illegal act, which may involve actions such as tax evasion or false accounting.

So obambiguyguy creates money out of thin air, then he lends it to banks, who then give REAL MONEY back to him and then the money goes....???????

The problem with TARP is that it wasn’t just printed but appropriated by Congress. That means it goes on the books increasing our Debt and Deficit?

Can we put obambi in jail for misappropiating these returned funds? Of course he might just use this money to help Community Organizers like ACORN and moslem Charities that help HAMAS.

Or is this all because Obambi still digs Larry Sinclair?

[Right Wing Assault]

If it isn’t going to help, give it to me. I will make sure it helps someone.

[Arguendo]

Do you have support for your claim it won’t help taxpayers? Many here were swearing the Treasury would never see a dime of its TARP investments returned.