Posts tagged as:

TARP

Sen. Judd Gregg Schools Peter Orszag

February 3, 2010

Sen. Judd Gregg schooled White House Budget Director Peter Orszag over the White House’s plan to reuse repaid TARP funds for other purposes.  Gregg points out that the law requires that repaid TARP money be used to pay down the debt, and pushes Orszag on that point.  Fun to watch.

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How TARP Failed

January 31, 2010

No one liked TARP (the Troubled Asset Relief Program from the Fall of 2008), but so many have credited it with averting a more massive economic collapse in the Fall and Winter between Dubya and the Obama Nation.  Well, the Special Inspector General of the TARP Program, Neil Barofsky, has a few things to say [...]

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Dems in 2010: New Year, Old Target

January 2, 2010

I laughed out loud when I saw this headline from Fox: “Desperate for Edge in Election Year, Dems Turn to Old Strategy.”  What strategy, you ask?  Let’s go through the old Democrat Playbook: Class warfare?  That’s a given.  Republicans are racist, homophobic neanderthals?  Not yet, but wait for it by summer.  Blame Bush?  Bingo!
The 2010 [...]

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The Other Shoe

December 15, 2009

Consider this:

$700 billion for TARP
$800 billion for the Obama Stimulus Porkulus
$170 billion for Bush’s 2008 stimulus
$5.5 trillion in outlays by the Federal Reserve to shore up the banking industry
$3.1 trillion 2009 Federal Budget
$3.55 trillion 2010 Federal Budget

That brings the total spending of the Federal Government for 2008 to 2010 to $13.82 trillion. That doesn’t even [...]

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On TARP, The “Experts” Were Wrong

October 27, 2009

The Wall Street Journal, originally one of the biggest supporters proponents of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), wrote an editorial today about how they were wrong in pushing for its passage, and that it needs to end immediately.  Unfortunately, the Obama administration is in no rush to end the TARP Program.  The Journal now [...]

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The Cost of the Crisis: $23 Trillion

July 21, 2009

The events of the last year have produced a flurry of legislation so complex, and debated and passed so quickly, that most of the citizenry (not to mention the members of congress) have no idea what the government has passed and how much we are spending.  Enter Neil Barofsky.  Barofsky is an economist who also [...]

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Supreme Court Issues Stay Against Chrysler Bankruptcy

June 9, 2009

The Supreme Court issued a stay on the Chrysler bankruptcy ruling yesterday afternoon, shortly before a court of appeals imposed deadline would have made the deal final.  The Chrysler bankruptcy, engineered by the Obama administration, would have engineered a sale of Chrysler to Italian automaker Fiat, and paid off the unions at the expense of [...]

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Once You’re TARPed There’s No Going Back

April 6, 2009

Stuart Varney wrote an interesting OpEd in the Wall Street Journal Saturday that just caught my attention.  Apparently, four small banks in Louisiana, New York, Indiana and California have decided to pay back the $340 million TARP bill loaned to them by the Feds last Fall.  Awesome, right?  Just as promised by Paulson last Fall!  Maybe this will start [...]

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Banks Don’t Want Bailout Anymore

March 12, 2009

Banks are looking to return bailout money as Congress and the President attach more and more strings to the money.  It seems that the banks are just happy to go on their own when the Federal Government starts to put restrictions on how to run a business.  Besides restrictions on executive pay, which would seriously [...]

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The Inmates In Charge of the Asylum

February 11, 2009

I’ve been watching in somewhat horror the events of the last few weeks unfold.  We have this major financial crisis, which consists primarily of a series of bad assets that were created and fostered by liberal government programs.  And how are we trying to fix it?  With more liberal government programs.  TARP, by all accounts, [...]

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Here a Trillion, There a Trillion

February 10, 2009

$9.7 trillion.  That is currently how much spending has been committed by the Federal government to fix this crisis in the last year.  Of that:

$800 Billion is from the now-certain stimulus
$700 Billion for the TARP Program
$170 Billion from the Bush stimulus last year
$5.4 Trillion spent or committed in bailout buyouts by the Federal Reserve, Federal [...]

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Had Enough of TARP? Here Comes BARF!

January 30, 2009

First, there was the “Troubled Asset Relief Program” (TARP) which was the first nauseating bailout last fall.  Well, tax-cheat and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has an idea about what to do now that TARP has not really helped get the markets moving:  what Liz Moyer calls “BARF”, or the Bad Asset Repository Fund! 
Here’s the basic [...]

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What Are We Doing Here?

January 28, 2009

I am getting the feeling that history books will look at this economic crisis and wonder what the hell we are doing?  It seems that the idea of billions and trillions of dollars has lost its shock value with the American People.  We had a $750 billion TARP bailout package, the FED has increased the [...]

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Bailout, Part II

January 16, 2009

The remaining 350 billion of the $700 billion tarp bailout was released to the Treasury Thursday to do with as it sees fit.  A no-confidence vote was taken in the Senate, and it was defeated 52-42.  It needed passage in both houses to kill the rest of the bill, so any house vote is meaningless.
Add [...]

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Bailout Fever Poses Problems for the Baseline

January 13, 2009

A common element of proponents of the current bailout / stimulus fever is the fact that it is required to fix the economy, and temporary.  Thus, the estimated budget deficit of 2009 of $1 Trillion is seen as unfortunate, but necessary.
In an editorial at Bloomberg, Kevin Hassett of the American Enterprise Institute points out how [...]

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Boehner: No More Bailout Money

January 12, 2009

House Minority Leader John Boenher announced yesterday that he opposes releasing the remaining $350 billion of the TARP Bailout fund unless there is a proven need.
I think until there is a demonstrated need in our economy and a plan to address that need, I think it would be irresponsible for Congress to release the additional [...]

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Bush Continues March to Socialism with Auto Bailout

December 19, 2008

President Bush today defied the will of Congress and voted to use $15 billion of TARP money (the original Paulson bailout that was appropriated to save failing financial institutions during the credit crunch) to bail out the auto industry.  The bailout went to Chrysler and GM, as Ford decided it did not need a bailout [...]

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Thwarting the Will of the People

December 12, 2008

Last night, Senate Republicans successfully defeated the auto-bailout bill in a cloture vote (which requires 60 votes to succeed) due to lack of union concessions.  It is now being reported that the Bush Administration, through the Treasury Department, is going to ignore the will of the people’s elected representatives, and take $15 billion of the [...]

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