Let's discuss the Bank Bail Outs and Obama's role in execution of such

[FrenchieCat]

I want to get some additional information, because posters keep saying things like....Well he bailed out the banks! like that was a crime.

So now, its time for me (and the rest of us who aren't) to get informed about this.

Does anyone have some good "objective" article on exactly what Obama did vs. what Bush did. I know that Obama tracked the money better, but can someone lend me a hand on this?


It appears that Obama didn't do anything more about Bankster Bailouts, Than what was passed by congress, a situation that was brought on not by himself. He didn't end up giving up much of what he was left by Bush:

TARP Cost Cut By $200 Billion
The U.S. is still deep in debt, but at least the cost of bailing out the nation's financial system isn't as bad as expected:

New York Times: The Treasury Department expects to recover all but $42 billion of the $370 billion it has lent to ailing companies since the financial crisis began last year, with the portion lent to banks actually showing a slight profit, according to a new Treasury report.

The new assessment of the $700 billion bailout program, provided by two Treasury officials on Sunday ahead of a report to Congress on Monday, is vastly improved from the Obama administration’s estimates last summer of $341 billion in potential losses from the Troubled Asset Relief Program. That figure anticipated more financial troubles requiring intervention.

That means the deficit forecast for this fiscal year goes down $200 billion to $1.3 trillion.
http://www.businessinsider.com/tarp-cost-cut-by-200-billion-2009-12


Of what was handed out, a portion has been paid back, albeit, not all:

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The last of the big banks have returned their bailout funds, but uncorking the champagne would be premature: taxpayers still have a lot of skin in the game, and getting paid back only gets more difficult from here on out.

There are still 663 banks that have received a total of $58.6 billion in loans from the Troubled Asset Relief Program and have yet to pay the Treasury Department back.

At a quick glance, things are looking up for the bailout: Wells Fargo (WFC, Fortune 500) and Citigroup (C, Fortune 500) announced on Wednesday that they paid back a combined $45 billion in loans. The original eight bailout recipients have now paid back their loans in full, and 71% of TARP's $205 billion bank bailout portion has been returned.
http://money.cnn.com/2009/12/24/news/economy/bailout_payback/index.htm

[izzybeans]

1. I noticed that too.

I usually just ask them "who signed TARP again?"

It sounds like the changes Obama made were mostly accounting, but I wonder if something happened behind the scenes to make these banks start paying us back. You rarely see corps. giving back their subsidies.

It is very hard to find information to tell you the truth. I get a TARP google news alert in my email and the coverage on it has been very superficial. I believe there is an active attempt to get people to believe Obama bailed out the banks. That's about all I've learned from the news alerts other than when a bank decides to pay it back or complains about compensation caps.

[Cha]

4. You mean Pres Obama

didn't bail out the banks? Seriously, I read it numerous times on DU..not that I cared bc I know they have a method in their madness for saving the country's financial system and getting it on track again.

[rebel with a cause]

2. I wish I could help but

:shrug:

[RoyGBiv]

3. This is extremely complicated ...

... and that's one of the problems. Most people -- and I don't care who you are or how smart you are, this crap is difficult to understand and mind-numbingly BORING -- have no real clue what's going on, so they rely on what spin-doctors tell them. From the beginning, on both the left and the right, many of those doctors have been screaming bloody murder as those a colony of kittens had been wiped out with a wheat thresher.

The bottom line with that is that they don't care who did it or when or what it is trying to do. All they know is that they're having troubles of their own. They didn't get a check, but an institution whose public face is a guy or woman in a nice suit driving a limo apparently did, and they're pissed about it. That pretty much sums up the vast majority of the population's problem with and understanding of TARP.

ANYWAY ...

I'll try to dig up some links that try to explain various things better later today. I'm taking a break from screaming students and thought I'd look in on the screaming hoards of DU for a moment. At least this place doesn't smell bad. :)

But, basically, TARP was passed during the Bush admin and initially administered through the Treasury under Paulson. Very little of the original money was ever set up to be a "hand out," rather effectively a loan. The banks are supposed to pay it back, in other words.

Almost from the beginning, the funds haven't been disbursed as originally intended, which was partly by design of the bill in that it gave a lot of room for change given rapidly changing circumstances. This started even while Bush was in office, and Obama has continued it, using the funds allocated where needed when needed to try various things. Back in March there was this thing called the Geithner Plan that was to be funded by TARP money, highly leveraged, that was intended to help with unemployment. I'm not sure what all came of that off the top of my head.

Also remember that this is all just what Treasury is doing. There's a great big massive lot of money that was injected into the system via the Fed, which, as it happens, operates independently. But, it has been coordinating its actions with Treasury.

[Fire1]

5. I think the main thing to remember is that TARP was initiated

under W. BUSH!!