Fergasun Posted October 4, 2018 Share Posted October 4, 2018 Today marks the 10 year anniversary to Hank Paulson's $700B bailout, AKA "Troubled Asset Relief Program" -- which is one of the biggest shame/sham in American politics. I would like to thank Paulson, Bush, Geithner, and Bernanke for destroying all credibility I had given to politicians... Congress is full of lightweight, gutless fools. The whole program was run as a scam, with none of the debt-backed, "troubled assets" purchased. Yet to this day, no Act of Congress legitimized the program. Regardless of how it helped the economy... to bail out the banks (and we could probably have replaced them with better organizations) was, is, and will forever be a national farce... so consider this post a polite salute to all the great losers on Capital Hill who have never been honest about their actions.... namely Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Richard Shelby and Spencer Bachus. Frank is now retired, and doesn't appear to be working vigirously. Dodd was a MPAA President and is now a K Street lobbyist. Richard Shelby is still a Senator and Spencer Bachus is a political appointee to the Export-Import bank. Ben Bernanke is a fellow at the Brookings Institite and advisor for PIMCO. Hank Paulson runs his own institute and continues to be a philanthropist. Tim Geithner is the President of a private equity firm. Neel Kashkari is President of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kilmer17 Posted October 4, 2018 Share Posted October 4, 2018 We should have let them all fail. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Renegade7 Posted October 4, 2018 Share Posted October 4, 2018 Ya, there are many things I did not like about it or even the Stimulus, but we aren't in a depression, so.. there's that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TradeTheBeal! Posted October 4, 2018 Share Posted October 4, 2018 I still have my uncashed W Stimulus/emergency Christmas check from the US Treasury. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Renegade7 Posted October 4, 2018 Share Posted October 4, 2018 5 minutes ago, TryTheBeal! said: I still have my uncashed W Stimulus/emergency Christmas check from the US Treasury. Wow, I actually remember getting one, too. They was not very efficient use of resources, I took it, but didn't like it even then (paid like one bill and that was it) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zoony Posted October 4, 2018 Share Posted October 4, 2018 Tarp was the greatest move by a presidential admin in us economic history Bush redeemed his entire presidency. Wherever you are working now and with whatever money you have saved, thank Bush Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fergasun Posted October 4, 2018 Author Share Posted October 4, 2018 We certainly couldn't have just taken over the banks and used their profits to pay down the national debt or anything. TARP was a lie... a gross disgusting political fraud that was abused. I am convinced we just kept the turds floating by buying a bigger toilet... and the turds keep growing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
techboy Posted October 4, 2018 Share Posted October 4, 2018 8 hours ago, Fergasun said: Regardless of how it helped the economy... That's a rather cavalier brush off of the averting of a disaster of potentially epic (and global) proportions. I'm not sure the people in emerging market countries would have appreciated starving so politicians in the US could look tough. In any case, I'd suggest the real issue lies in not doing enough afterwards to punish the people responsible for the mess, but that's not TARP, though it is my greatest disappointment with President Obama. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fergasun Posted October 4, 2018 Author Share Posted October 4, 2018 Its deja vu all over again... as if there was a binary choice. The US government didn't do enough to actually help homeowners and not enough to make banks feel pain. Additionally the structure of the bailout was wholesale UNCONSTITUTIONAL. Sadly no one ever took it to a judge... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Renegade7 Posted October 4, 2018 Share Posted October 4, 2018 8 hours ago, zoony said: Tarp was the greatest move by a presidential admin in us economic history Bush redeemed his entire presidency. Wherever you are working now and with whatever money you have saved, thank Bush Redeem is a strong word, more like soften the blow on his legacy being one of if not the worst presidents we had up that point. If the Bush administration of all administrations could pull off TARP, its hard to argue Gore or Kerry wouldn't of. He may get credit for TARP, he should, but his legacy is tied to Iraq. I mean, he had nearly two terms to see the warning signs and what did he do about it? @techboy Obama's legacy is being too nice to met his potential. But he did it so he could say he tried so we don't have to going forward. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterMP Posted October 4, 2018 Share Posted October 4, 2018 Clearly, some banks needed help, and it made sense for the government to help them because the government doesn't actually have the funds to cover all of the FDIC accounts. The government and society had an interest in preventing runs on banks in general. From there, you get into an odd situation that you have to help out the institutions that are actually the most poorly run. But it is also true that some banks didn't really need much help, didn't use the money in a way that ended up helping borrowers and other individuals that were struggling due to the recession and simply used the money for other things. We're still investigating people for crimes associated with TARP. https://www.sigtarp.gov/Pages/investigations.aspx I find it hard to believe there wasn't a better approach (partly allowing people to borrow money directly from the Fed instead of the banks seems like it might have helped). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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