JONATHAN CHAIT NOVEMBER 30, 2010
-
Read Later
READ LATERAvailable only to subscribers. SUBSCRIBE TODAY
-
Listen
ARTICLE AUDIO
- Font Size
TARP may end up going down as one of the most successful policy initiatives in American history:
The projected cost of the $700-billion financial bailout fund — initially feared to be a huge hit to taxpayers — continues to drop, with the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimating Monday that losses would amount to just $25 billion.
That's a sharp drop from the CBO's last estimate, in August, of a $66-billion loss for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, known as TARP. Going back to March, the budget office estimated that the program would cost taxpayers $109 billion.
The new, more optimistic forecast largely reflects money the Treasury Department has received as banks have repaid their loans and repurchased stock warrants. It also takes into account lower estimated costs for assistance to insurance giant American International Group Inc. and General Motors Corp., which recently held a highly successful initial public offering, the CBO said.
3 comments
If this keeps up, we might wind up in the black. And yet huge numbers of people think that the money flew out of the Treasury never to return. This is frustrating as hell.
- liberal reformer
November 30, 2010 at 5:40pm
liberal reformer: This Republican shares your frustration. Politicians of both parties, and both wings of ideology, have found common ground: TARP was anathema! It was saving the plutocrats on the backs of the working class. No, it was a betrayal of the free market system. Etc., etc., etc. Nobody, NOBODY, has a kind word to say about TARP. Why should we care? We should care because we will likely need to do something like it again somewhere down the pike; maybe sooner than we would like. Serious people in each party--there are a few-- should say it was like taking castor oil; it was extremely distasteful, but it worked. We got a very, very painful recession, still really with us, but avoided a second Great Depression, which was a very real, and imminent threat. To those who want bankers hung by the dozen from trees, I say get over it. To those who wail over lying home buyers eagerly shedding the contracts they signed, I say get over it. The S&L fiasco of two decades ago looks to have cost the taxpayers more. Who remembers it? We await the report of an expert commission appointed to ferret out wrong-doing. I hold my breath awaiting the appointment of an expert commission to ferret out right-doing; a group that would figure out how to do it better the next time; because there will be a next time.
- lsernoff
November 30, 2010 at 8:14pm
"Thank you for saving your money with HSBC. We wanted to let you know that your Online Savings Account rate was adjusted to 1.00% APY* as of November 30, 2010." FUCCKKKKKKK. And yes, the issues are connected. This is the real way banks are getting back on their feet.
- mmathog
November 30, 2010 at 8:27pm