I dont wanna get into the tussel that has preceded this comment. It is rather obvious that there is some history playing out in this thread.
But to try to put it back on a course alittle more related to the true theme of the OP, the congressional budget office said that over HALF of the original TARP is gonan be lost? HALF! As in, we will get 50cents on the dollar in return for taxpayers money. And this wasnt in the Media anywhere? I mean, comone. CNN, get your head outa Obamas ass and atleast write something about this. Which is the bigger story?
A) Government projected to lose 356Billion on TARP
B) President Obama gives Queen an IPOD
Wasnt it like 5 months ago we were suppose to be making money overall? Wasnt that the kinda snide little remark the talking heads used to sell this? “taxpayers may even see a return from this investment”. I sure remember it.
Now, I fully realize that TARP money has been taking some funny twists as of late. It originally looked like what we are now calling PPIP, but has become this amophus blob of prefered stock, AIG bailout money, troubled loan refinancing, and more. It has become a catch-all for any and every program that may or maynot loosen credit and fix portions of this housing mess. The Bank money so far seems to be ahead of the game (I think) and returning its money and even some real return. Great, YAY! Still, HALF is projected to be lost, and narry a peep was heard about it. And this isnt some blogger projection, it is the CBO. Hopefully they know something about this.
It seems to me that even if certain portions of this bill do offer some return, I should be able to criticize the entire bill when it looses more than half of the entire amount. If nothing else, it was written extreamly poorly so as to allow Government ‘leaders’ to enact any and all pet projects without sufficient oversight or debate. Unfornatually, I see the same happening with PIPP in the future, and I doubt it will stop there.
And then we will have the defenders coming out with completly unprovable or unassiabale statements like “well it woulda been worse if we hadnt done this” and “It was a necessary evil that stopped Depression II”. I cant prove you were wrong, and you cant prove you were right, but it happened and eventually things will get better so it musta worked right?
Maybe Inflation wont be such a big deal with these kinda returns on our newly printed money.
