Geithner Debunks Five Greatest Myths About TARP

The Washington Post:

Born at the peak of the financial crisis in 2008, the Troubled Asset Relief Program expired last week, ending what was perhaps the most maligned yet most effective government program in recent memory. Despite new evidence about the low ultimate cost and positive impact of the TARP, there is still a chasm between the perceptions of the program and its overwhelmingly favorable effect on the U.S. economy.

Read the whole story: The Washington Post

Comments

[Kevin Atlanta]

12:43 PM on 10/10/2010

The Holy Republican Cults of Jesus Inc's pay-off to the Oligarchy in TARP defines clearly the Dubya and Wrecking Crew's agenda of the destruction of America and is the Corporate Fascist's purchase of the Halliburton White House to transition it to the Goldman Sachs White House for $4.6 Trillion dollars from American prosperity.

High Crimes and Treason are the legacy of Dubya and the Wrecking Crew and this Goldman Sachs White House provided lip-service to the real walking wounded on Main Street while pandering to their Corporate Fascist puppet masters.

This President Obama is the Corporate approved candidate and demonstrates clearly the chain of custody and ownership of the White House by the Banksters, Wall Street and the Corporate Collective with no allegiance to the United States.

Unless and until President Obama stands against these vile and repugnant thieves, embezzlers, frauds and felons there is no healing in America on Main Street. Unless and until these criminals are brought to justice there is no healing or restoration on Main Street because it is "business as usual" in the gambling parlors on Wall Street.

Paying bonuses for global destruction is obscene.

Rewarding the criminal is the state of Justice in America today as long as that crime impacts the US Treasury.

The kid on the street with a joint still gets 3 to 5 years hard corporate prison time.

Equal Justice Under The Law?

Not so much in America today.

[andyg]

05:23 PM on 10/10/2010

The holy cult of obummer clings to hope and change as the number of people with out jobs go up and up.

[Kevin Atlanta]

05:50 PM on 10/10/2010

It's the System.

Real solutions in America would begin with absolute Campaign Reform NOW.

Rolling Fannie & Freddie up into the American Home Mortgage Bank; Citizen owned and operated and ripping the mortgage business out of the hands of the Banksters and Wall Street Gambling parlors is a great first step. Addressing the foreclosure crisis first and then moving on to address the reality that the current financial institutions do not exist for the good of any economy but only for their personal enrichment is next.

End the FED, become independent of the Global Banking Cartel.

Migrate the Social Security trust fund into the American Home Mortgage bank to assist in guaranteed home mortgages for Citizens over 30 or 35 who have paid into Social Security and the system have ownership in the Bank paying dividends directly to their Social Security Accounts put an honest pool of reserve available for all. Social Security doesn't have to be privatized; it has to be protected from the corruption and greed on CapitAl Hill.

End the wars and bring our troops home to nation-build in the USA.

A WPA style welfare to work program on a community basis to address local issues with local talent and local business will work.

End the War on Drugs that is a war on our children's experimenting and is a colossal failure and waste of resources. Put the funds to use in Education for medical professionals and treat medical problems rather than criminalize the citizen.

[AZreb]

09:28 AM on 10/10/2010

Does anyone else have real concerns that Elizabeth Warren may not be able to do the things that need to be done since she has to report to Geithner? Wishing her the best, but very worried since Geirthner seems to be the one the president listens to most.

[Kevin Atlanta]

06:01 PM on 10/10/2010

I have faith that regardless of the attempt to construct obstacles Ms Warren is very able and well equipped to bulldoze her fine Oklahoma self right through the smarmy Geithner.

President Obama is going to have to face reality and stand on his own two feet with his spine holding him up instead of the consensus from the Confederacy of Dunces that have surrounded him. His first mistake was ditching his campaign people for this group of Corporate Fascist Shills like Summers, Emmanuel, Geithner and their ilk and loosing Christina Romer.

There may be hope if he enlists people like Elizabeth Warren and William Black to clean up the mess but 2 years is a long time for these embezzlers and frauds to cover their tracks and that was done with forethought and full knowledge.

I still support this Obama Presidency but I'm tired of the pandering to Oligarchy and their Military.

[SShaw490]

08:04 AM on 10/10/2010

Reading these comments, I see why America has become a failure as a society - people are more invested in shadowy conspiracy theories than they are in the plain facts before them. They are unwilling to acknowledge the fact - the FACT - that the entire world financial system is interdependent and, in October 2008, was simultaneously collapsing. I recognize that the fundamental issue that destabilized it is still an issue (speculative investing in derivatives and hedge funds), but that's not the point - allowing a total collapse wasn't going to hurt bankers, it was going to hurt everyone. That's how world wars start, you know. Wars aren't land grabs, they're money and equity grabs. If you want to find a good scenario for the US, China and Russia to go to war, just elevate the ownership of energy to paramount economic importance and send everyone's military muscle to the Middle East, and you've accomplished the Apocalypse.

But it's easier to say that it's all Geithners' fault. It's easier to hate Wall Street tycoons, who deserve it, than to recognize that there are times in life when you have to make hard choices, and this is one of those times. Of George Bush's entire 8 years in office, TARP was the only thing he did right. But belief in shadowy conspiracy theories propogated by crackpots on the Internet are much more entertaining than dealing with facts, and America wants entertainment more than they want to understand anything.

[cuzkate]

10:20 AM on 10/10/2010

490, Puleeze! Nobody is saying it is all Timmy's fault. There was not one single thing
in Bush's 8 yrs that he did right..not one single thing. If you think no job, shelter or less is entertaining you are sooo wrong. Those 2 items ARE THE FACTS! No conspiracy just
FACTS of our lives today.

[MrOctober]

01:54 PM on 10/10/2010

Talk about conspiracy theories, you are claiming if not for TARP things would have melted down so badly that War between Russia, China and the US would have been the outcome.

[SShaw490]

02:47 PM on 10/10/2010

If you don't recognize that risk, you don't know anything about history. Tarp was necessary, it was effective, and it was cheap.

[Tackora]

05:10 AM on 10/10/2010

Dont you dare to wag your finger on us, you scheister..

[Hoosierbrad]

04:57 PM on 10/10/2010

Would that be shyster you are trying to say?

[LiteSleeper]

02:55 AM on 10/10/2010

I don't believe anything coming out of his face. You know there's a reason this was called TARP. It's cynical and was meant to tell you from the beginning what this was meant to do. Cover up the evidence. That's what any tarp does right? Covers things up. This thing has done nothing about the toxic assets at the heart of all of our troubles. They're still there. Now they've made Too Big to Fail even worse by consolidating bank power even more and now even codifying that the Federal Reserve will come to the aid of "systemically important" banks instead of breaking them up like they should be. THis is all nonsense. Just wait a few months for the next financial collapse and tell me that TARP worked.

[MuchMadness]

12:00 AM on 10/10/2010

"President Obama adopted a strategy designed to get the government out of the private sector as quickly as possible" says Mr. Geithner.

But if the government gets out of the private sector, what will make the private sector behave decently? It could be that there are more ethics and higher morality in government than in a lot of big businesses.

[Hoosierbrad]

04:58 PM on 10/10/2010

Of course, TARP was passed on Pres. Bushes watch.

[Robert Masters]

11:52 PM on 10/10/2010

Although Bush called for TARP the democrats didn't have to jump onto his bandwagon. The democratic Congress passed the bill.

[MuchMadness]

07:00 PM on 10/11/2010

TARP was necessary. The banks really were too big to fail. The alternative to TARP was another Great Depression.

[ibsteve2u]

11:53 PM on 10/09/2010

In other words: Oh, goody - TARP ensured that capital in America will continue to be increasingly concentrated in trading equities, government securities, futures, foreign exchange/currency, corporate debt, options, and OTC swaps/forwards/options.

The relative few who perform or invest in those activities will continue to aggregate more and more of the wealth in our economy until the entire system collapses - or erupts - because the other 99% of the American people have been cut out.

I repeat: Oh, goody.

[casino capitalism]

12:20 AM on 10/10/2010

it's a casino economy. TARP should have been done in conjunction with a wholesale reform of wall street and the role/scope of financial engineering and trading in the economy. That didn't happen. Supporters of TARP say it saved the financial system. What if the financial system we have wasn't worth saving?

[CANTHATBE]

11:25 PM on 10/09/2010

1-4 are highly debatable. The only one I can agree with Tim is on 5. Tarp was signed under Bush.

[LunaPark]

10:05 PM on 10/09/2010

The injustice of TARP is staggering. I’d rather wait in a soup line than see another government bailout of anybody or any corporation. The only economy TARP saved was the economy that keeps the rich bankers fat and comfortable at the expense of everyone else. TARP created a huge moral hazard allowing corporate elitists to shift the consequences of their high risk investments and poor decisions on the backs of tax payers both present and future. It’s government central planning at its worse. Our government made us serfs so elitist bankers didn’t have to suffer

[vippy]

07:08 PM on 10/09/2010

We were not living in a democracy when congress hurried against the wish of people and bailed out the banks! They did it in record time. Forgot to include rules and it did nothing for main street America. They apply bandages and those are wasted because at the same time they did not
stop the bleeding of jobs. Mind you, the bill to deal with corporations who send jobs overseas
stalled in congress early this week. Where was the story in Huffpo or any other major news source? And then Obama got on the air the very next day and said he wants products to be made in America. LOL, don't they talk to each other?

[ran6110]

11:58 PM on 10/09/2010

Also, they left the bankers that caused the problem in charge. I personally don't think they forgot to include rules, I think they deliberately placed no rules on the money.

[hrpmap]

12:05 AM on 10/10/2010

And that would be my opinion also. TARP from the beginning was designed to save the banksters butts, not our.

[Y3rMawm]

06:55 PM on 10/09/2010

Why has the Obamabot not fired this rat already?

[Hoosierbrad]

04:59 PM on 10/10/2010

That would be President Obama to you. Maybe it is because no conservative economist has any credibility.

[robeson]

05:18 PM on 10/09/2010

Good start Tim,
Now follow up.
1. Five greatest myths about 'free' markets.
2. Five greatest myths about de-regulation.
3. Five greatest myths about 'trickle down'.
4. Five greatest myths about globalism.

Tim hears a hint, a common thread,
They have all failed miserably and for 30 years.

[Y3rMawm]

06:50 PM on 10/09/2010

1 & 2 would have to have existed in order to have even attempted failure. They did not.

[LunaPark]

10:01 PM on 10/09/2010

There is nothing free market about government intervention to save corporations and financiers that made poor decisions. What failed miserably is central government planning orchestrated by the private Federal Reserve. God I wish we would give true free market a try.

[Pierpier]

04:49 PM on 10/09/2010

Tarp has worked SPECTACULARLY and didn't cost much. I know that most of you are frustrated at reading HP make a positive statement about it's favorite target Geithner. This was long overdue !

[frank day]

05:52 PM on 10/09/2010

TARP failed at the thing it was supposed to do:

Fix the underlying problem of troubled assets.

Instead of working with homeowners to heal the economy, the banks took the funds and used them to further parlay their gamblings in the Wall Street Casino.

This article just proves how dangerous Geithner is. He needs to go. Quickly.

[fauxton]

07:08 PM on 10/09/2010

TARP = Troubled Asset Relief Program... not the Pay Off Everyone's Mortgage and Let the Government Carry the Loan Program (how Socialist is that!? not to mention a terrible Acronym)

TARP was never meant to fix the underlying problem of troubled assets, it was meant to help relieve the problem so the free market could fix the underlying problem. If TARP was meant for homeowners you would have been given the opportunity to borrow money from the banks just like the banks were given (assuming you are a homeowner).

Once TARP turns a profit for the American tax payers will you praise the Bush administration for starting it or Geithner for managing it?

[halfpricefaustian]

07:23 PM on 10/09/2010

TARP was a major head-fake by the biggest wall street players to dump their trash assets onto the taxpayer and walk away. When they realized that it wasn't a free ride, and they had to forego their ridiculous bonuses, they crawled out from under it immediately, proving that they did not need TARP to begin with. Fortunately, their trained puppy, Tim Geither, created Maiden Lane I, Maiden Lane II. and Maiden Lane III to use 1.2 TRILLION dollars of taxpayer money to do what TARP failed to do, and they were never called on it. There were also never any repurchase agreements, so they can just walk away and forget about it all, and we, the citizens of this country, have to eat the losses. Geithner should be put in a dark prison and never be allowed to see the light of day again.

[vippy]

07:09 PM on 10/09/2010

This was the biggest heist on the American People ever!

[frank day]

07:33 PM on 10/09/2010

In world history. IMHO.

[ran6110]

03:04 PM on 10/09/2010

TARP might have been necessary to protect the financial industry but there is still a moral and ethical issue with letting all of the people who caused the problem off the hook!

If the overall greed of the bankers and wall street had been regulated and managed correctly the bailout would never have been necessary!

These people were saved, didn't lose a dime and none of them are going to jail while the damage they caused has ruined millions of lives...

[Pierpier]

04:51 PM on 10/09/2010

They are two different problems. The people "off the hook" do not invalidate tarp. Separate them. That said I agree about the hook

[ran6110]

11:48 PM on 10/09/2010

Actually, that's been much of the problem. We don't separate the two...

[vippy]

07:10 PM on 10/09/2010

We, the people, who ended up paying for this, did not create this mess, congress did. Though they make us believe it is not their fault. It was planned when they removed the regulations during Clinton Time and then concocted a reform bill, that left out any meaningful regulation again.
And people still are blinded.

[ran6110]

11:53 PM on 10/09/2010

They've not only tried to say it wasn't their fault, but some how it was the fault of the homeowners who signed up for the loans...

If you ignore a lot of the partisan noise here (and other places) you see that more people are starting to see that both parties are to blame...

I feel we won't make better progress in reform until we get many more people to stop blaming only one party or the other. It was both of them!!!

Good reply!

F&F 342

[maxhardon]

02:24 PM on 10/09/2010

I can't understand why this tax cheat gets to spout off the Washington Post with all those lies about TARP.