TARP has lost 40% since inception

[patientrenter]

Wow! Finally, a thread with several genuinely interesting and funny conversations. Thanks to all for the entertainment.

UCGal: I’ve gone through AIG’s books carefully, and I don’t agree with several of Thomas Gober’s points. The truth is that AIG’s insurance operations were, overall, pretty good compared to other insurance companies and other financial institutions in general. Of course, most of the financial sector is in the toilet, so most companies have some issues.

DWCAP and others: Yes, the big show over $165 million in bonuses (that’s less than 0.02% of the amount Bernanke announced he was going to flush down the toilet just this week) and much of the other fireworks on Capitol Hill are designed to distract the weak-minded from the main action. We all know that scene from The Wizard of Oz. There is no single master manipulator, just a community of Democratic and Republican politicians hungry for votes and dollars, bankers and businessmen hungry for jobs and dollars, and 200 million voters with a perceived stake in higher asset prices.

Allan and davelj: Your support for Bernanke and others blowing bubbles from Washington DC is misplaced, I think. You see them as flawed but basically competent and trustworthy. They are just limited practical people administering the medicine the visionary Keynes prescribed 70 years ago. It has become very fashionable to dismiss the moral hazard concerns, and to attribute nothing but an altruistic concern for the greater economic good to those who advocate massive bailouts.

But what if all this is mostly just a massive and wasteful bailout for the reckless and irresponsible, under the guise of a rescue of our economic way of life? We’ll have a boost in the GDP numbers because of the bailout actions, but what if most of that is just lousy measurement of our real welfare? Does it really make us wealthier to keep hundreds of thousands of bankers at their desks instead of figuring out which other profession to make a career of? Or to pretend that our houses are all worth many, many years of someone else’s savings so that we can continue to fantasize about playing golf for 30 years when we retire and scale down?

I would be perfectly OK with 10 years of GDP 20% less than today’s, if a lot of the missing 20% was mortgage broking, asset managers, FNMA and Freddie and most of the other govt guarantee entities, and other people who add little value, or even destroy it. Yes, others would get hurt too, but we’d do fine overall. We really need a housecleaning at this point, a clean break with the past. We’re not getting it.

[Allan from Fallbrook]

Patientrenter: Let me be the first to say I might be dead wrong in my assessment of the situation, but I think that an orderly unwinding is preferable to an uncontrolled crash landing.

There is something on the order of $20Trn worth of potential bad debt floating out there and, until that’s swept away or dealt with, we’re going to continue to experience significant structural and systemic issues.

While I hear your point regarding a GDP reduced by some 20%, how would that happen and in such a way to not put us in the ditch? I’ve looked at this six ways to Sunday and I’ll be damned if I can figure it out. I’m not claiming any particular genius here, but I can see where Bernanke is trying to go. I know he’s incurred the wrath of quite a few economists in the blogosphere, including Mike Shedlock, but I frankly don’t see Mish’s solution (just let ’em all fail) as being a better alternative.

[Allan from Fallbrook]

Patientrenter: Let me be the first to say I might be dead wrong in my assessment of the situation, but I think that an orderly unwinding is preferable to an uncontrolled crash landing.

There is something on the order of $20Trn worth of potential bad debt floating out there and, until that’s swept away or dealt with, we’re going to continue to experience significant structural and systemic issues.

While I hear your point regarding a GDP reduced by some 20%, how would that happen and in such a way to not put us in the ditch? I’ve looked at this six ways to Sunday and I’ll be damned if I can figure it out. I’m not claiming any particular genius here, but I can see where Bernanke is trying to go. I know he’s incurred the wrath of quite a few economists in the blogosphere, including Mike Shedlock, but I frankly don’t see Mish’s solution (just let ’em all fail) as being a better alternative.

[Allan from Fallbrook]

Patientrenter: Let me be the first to say I might be dead wrong in my assessment of the situation, but I think that an orderly unwinding is preferable to an uncontrolled crash landing.

There is something on the order of $20Trn worth of potential bad debt floating out there and, until that’s swept away or dealt with, we’re going to continue to experience significant structural and systemic issues.

While I hear your point regarding a GDP reduced by some 20%, how would that happen and in such a way to not put us in the ditch? I’ve looked at this six ways to Sunday and I’ll be damned if I can figure it out. I’m not claiming any particular genius here, but I can see where Bernanke is trying to go. I know he’s incurred the wrath of quite a few economists in the blogosphere, including Mike Shedlock, but I frankly don’t see Mish’s solution (just let ’em all fail) as being a better alternative.

[Allan from Fallbrook]

Patientrenter: Let me be the first to say I might be dead wrong in my assessment of the situation, but I think that an orderly unwinding is preferable to an uncontrolled crash landing.

There is something on the order of $20Trn worth of potential bad debt floating out there and, until that’s swept away or dealt with, we’re going to continue to experience significant structural and systemic issues.

While I hear your point regarding a GDP reduced by some 20%, how would that happen and in such a way to not put us in the ditch? I’ve looked at this six ways to Sunday and I’ll be damned if I can figure it out. I’m not claiming any particular genius here, but I can see where Bernanke is trying to go. I know he’s incurred the wrath of quite a few economists in the blogosphere, including Mike Shedlock, but I frankly don’t see Mish’s solution (just let ’em all fail) as being a better alternative.

[Allan from Fallbrook]

Patientrenter: Let me be the first to say I might be dead wrong in my assessment of the situation, but I think that an orderly unwinding is preferable to an uncontrolled crash landing.

There is something on the order of $20Trn worth of potential bad debt floating out there and, until that’s swept away or dealt with, we’re going to continue to experience significant structural and systemic issues.

While I hear your point regarding a GDP reduced by some 20%, how would that happen and in such a way to not put us in the ditch? I’ve looked at this six ways to Sunday and I’ll be damned if I can figure it out. I’m not claiming any particular genius here, but I can see where Bernanke is trying to go. I know he’s incurred the wrath of quite a few economists in the blogosphere, including Mike Shedlock, but I frankly don’t see Mish’s solution (just let ’em all fail) as being a better alternative.

[gandalf]

That’s where I’m at too.

[gandalf]

That’s where I’m at too.

[gandalf]

That’s where I’m at too.

[gandalf]

That’s where I’m at too.

[gandalf]

That’s where I’m at too.

[patientrenter]

Fair enough, Allan. But I would just caution all Piggs that most of the population of the US is hooked on the dream of becoming wealthy via inflation of the prices of assets bought with other people’s money. That creates a tremendous incentive for even intelligent and good people to ‘buy in’ to any plausible theory that tries to keep them in the dream little longer, or at least rescues them from the full consequences of their bad personal choices.

So we are getting, from all directions and in tremendous volumes, support for the bailouts. Maybe the bailouts really are the best course of action, but I am very suspicious of ‘free lunch’ solutions, ones that evade personal responsibility for past actions, the madness of crowds and, above all, motives. As in solving any crime, you can often figure things out best just by following who gets the money, not by listening to the clever stories that people weave for their own ends.

The lesson I draw from what is happening is that my worst fears of the country’s people and politicians is realized. When next I have a chance to ‘screw the system’ for my personal enrichment, I will take full advantage of it. Maybe I am just an insignificant element of the population, but if a lot of people like me, who have never before tried to avoid paying taxes and debts, instead work the system from every angle, maybe there won’t be a system. I doubt Larry Summers is calculating in the cost of the bailouts any large impact from that. I hope he’s right, but he might be wrong. He’s smart, but he’s not a genius.

[patientrenter]

Fair enough, Allan. But I would just caution all Piggs that most of the population of the US is hooked on the dream of becoming wealthy via inflation of the prices of assets bought with other people’s money. That creates a tremendous incentive for even intelligent and good people to ‘buy in’ to any plausible theory that tries to keep them in the dream little longer, or at least rescues them from the full consequences of their bad personal choices.

So we are getting, from all directions and in tremendous volumes, support for the bailouts. Maybe the bailouts really are the best course of action, but I am very suspicious of ‘free lunch’ solutions, ones that evade personal responsibility for past actions, the madness of crowds and, above all, motives. As in solving any crime, you can often figure things out best just by following who gets the money, not by listening to the clever stories that people weave for their own ends.

The lesson I draw from what is happening is that my worst fears of the country’s people and politicians is realized. When next I have a chance to ‘screw the system’ for my personal enrichment, I will take full advantage of it. Maybe I am just an insignificant element of the population, but if a lot of people like me, who have never before tried to avoid paying taxes and debts, instead work the system from every angle, maybe there won’t be a system. I doubt Larry Summers is calculating in the cost of the bailouts any large impact from that. I hope he’s right, but he might be wrong. He’s smart, but he’s not a genius.

[patientrenter]

Fair enough, Allan. But I would just caution all Piggs that most of the population of the US is hooked on the dream of becoming wealthy via inflation of the prices of assets bought with other people’s money. That creates a tremendous incentive for even intelligent and good people to ‘buy in’ to any plausible theory that tries to keep them in the dream little longer, or at least rescues them from the full consequences of their bad personal choices.

So we are getting, from all directions and in tremendous volumes, support for the bailouts. Maybe the bailouts really are the best course of action, but I am very suspicious of ‘free lunch’ solutions, ones that evade personal responsibility for past actions, the madness of crowds and, above all, motives. As in solving any crime, you can often figure things out best just by following who gets the money, not by listening to the clever stories that people weave for their own ends.

The lesson I draw from what is happening is that my worst fears of the country’s people and politicians is realized. When next I have a chance to ‘screw the system’ for my personal enrichment, I will take full advantage of it. Maybe I am just an insignificant element of the population, but if a lot of people like me, who have never before tried to avoid paying taxes and debts, instead work the system from every angle, maybe there won’t be a system. I doubt Larry Summers is calculating in the cost of the bailouts any large impact from that. I hope he’s right, but he might be wrong. He’s smart, but he’s not a genius.

[patientrenter]

Fair enough, Allan. But I would just caution all Piggs that most of the population of the US is hooked on the dream of becoming wealthy via inflation of the prices of assets bought with other people’s money. That creates a tremendous incentive for even intelligent and good people to ‘buy in’ to any plausible theory that tries to keep them in the dream little longer, or at least rescues them from the full consequences of their bad personal choices.

So we are getting, from all directions and in tremendous volumes, support for the bailouts. Maybe the bailouts really are the best course of action, but I am very suspicious of ‘free lunch’ solutions, ones that evade personal responsibility for past actions, the madness of crowds and, above all, motives. As in solving any crime, you can often figure things out best just by following who gets the money, not by listening to the clever stories that people weave for their own ends.

The lesson I draw from what is happening is that my worst fears of the country’s people and politicians is realized. When next I have a chance to ‘screw the system’ for my personal enrichment, I will take full advantage of it. Maybe I am just an insignificant element of the population, but if a lot of people like me, who have never before tried to avoid paying taxes and debts, instead work the system from every angle, maybe there won’t be a system. I doubt Larry Summers is calculating in the cost of the bailouts any large impact from that. I hope he’s right, but he might be wrong. He’s smart, but he’s not a genius.

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