Free Republic

WASHINGTON, March 29 (Reuters) - The U.S. Treasury's bank bailout program will move into a profit for the first time on Wednesday with the expected repayment of $7.4 billion in taxpayer funds, Treasury officials said. The transfers to the Troubled Asset Relief Program will push recoveries from banks to $251 billion in repayments of capital, dividends, interest and other income. It invested $245 billion in banks during the financial crisis to help avert a U.S. financial system collapse. The officials did not identify the banks expected to repay funds. But SunTrust Banks Inc and Key Corp said on March 18...

Two days ago, I wrote here on the widely-reported $30 billion loan that the Federal Reserve made as part of brokering the acquisition of the Bear Stearns Companies by JP Morgan Chase (the "St. Patrick's Day Massacre"). I now have much more information on what this deal is all about. I guessed quite wrong about the deal structure. The $30 billion loan is not a term repo as I originally thought. Nor is it likely to generate monetary losses for taxpayers. (In fact, the opposite is true.)But it is something bold and different that's worth understanding. In fact, it's a...