Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder <a href="http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2011/07/08/surprise-the-big-bad-bailout-is-paying-off/" target="_blank">http://finance.fortune.cnn.com...ing-off/</a> Some excerpts: "The Fed now owns almost $2 trillion more of securities than it did before financial problems surfaced in 2007. A normal financial institution would have had to borrow heavily to add $2 trillion of assets, and interest on that borrowed money would have offset most or all of the income from the added assets. The Fed, though, doesn't have to borrow: It effectively creates money (which has its own problems) to buy the securities. So the Fed's income on its added securities is pure profit. Each year the Fed turns over most of its annual profit to the Treasury. It's money that the Treasury can spend, and it reduces the federal budget deficit. From 2007 (when the Fed began expanding its balance sheet to combat financial instability) through 2010, the Fed sent a total of $193 billion to the Treasury. In the previous four years it sent the Treasury only $91 billion. We're counting that $102 billion difference as bailout-related profit". And for balance: "Our accounting is unconventional because in some places we count what has happened, in some places we project what's likely to happen, and in some places we've done our own numbers because no others exist. If things break right, taxpayers could come out $100 billion ahead: our $42 billion profit estimate, plus a $25 billion reduction in the Fannie/Freddie cost, $25 billion more in Fed profits, and a reduction in the $19 billion expense we're showing for TARP. We don't expect any of what we've told you to make the bailout popular -- we're not wild about it ourselves for the same reasons many people dislike it. The government was picking winners and losers. Big Government bailed out Big Finance while letting average taxpayers lose their homes. Creditors of bank companies and AIG got far too good a deal at taxpayer expense. Wall Street is back to paying enormous bonuses (and whining about being demonized), while average Americans, whose tax dollars saved the Street, are still suffering. And, of course, the economy is down 7 million jobs from its peak in 2007. But something needed to be done when the financial world was on the brink of the abyss, and the government did something. No matter what your views are, you should be happy that taxpayers, almost miraculously, are coming out ahead rather than hundreds of billions of dollars behind."
Originally Posted By Donny <a href="http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1869495_1869493_1869483,00.html" target="_blank">http://www.time.com/time/speci...,00.html</a>
Originally Posted By ecdc Uhhh...Donny, you do realize that's from Jan. 2009 before Obama was inaugurated. Since then the bailout has been repaid. Might wanna get some updated links.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder Donny, is there a hole in your head? There's a trail of rocks behind you.
Originally Posted By skinnerbox Forget it, guys. When it comes to Obama, Donny cannot think logically, he's incapable of accepting facts, and allows his prejudice towards the man, for whatever reason it exists, to overwhelm his capabilities as a rational, thinking human being. Donny's dislike for Obama clouds his critical thinking to the point it no longer functions. Donny hates Obama. There is no reasoning with him. Just let it go.
Originally Posted By Donny I notice you didnt attack the facts of this article but just me personaly.
Originally Posted By Donny I think singlecellbrainholder has gotten this was massively wrong.Since I was against it from the beginning when President Bush met with Mcain and Obama I have been watching economists try to put a positive spin on it.But to stupidly say it's a success when even the most positive reviews like the one you posted have to admit that this crash is still happening.Sure Big banks and investers got their money but it did little to save homes,jobs,businesses.even this reported posted this "A key reason for the rescue's profitability is that the Federal Reserve System has already turned over more than $100 billion of bailout-related income to the Treasury, and is on track to turn over $85 billion more this year and next. That's not something most people include in their math. On the negative side, we're including what may be the first overall cost calculation of a special tax break that's worth tens of billions of dollars to four big bailout recipients. And, of course, we've analyzed reports from the Congressional Budget Office, the Treasury, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., and other sources." Even he is admitting this is only a projection and not the final out come. I just wonder if SPP ever starts cheering "yeah, we won!" at football games after the first quarter.
Originally Posted By ecdc >>I notice you didnt attack the facts of this article but just me personaly.<< I didn't, I just pointed put that your link was wildly outdated, especially for a topic that is entirely time-dependent. There have been multiple articles on this over the past six to eight months, Donny. The bailout has almost been fully repaid and did what it was supposed to do. Yet conservatives like you remain stuck in the fall of 2008, insisting it was a fiasco.
Originally Posted By fkurucz >>Yet conservatives like you remain stuck in the fall of 2008, insisting it was a fiasco.<< Which is interesting as George W Bush was still in charge. This bailout was backed by the GOP.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder Donny, and I mean this with all sincerity, you give every impression that you're simply not smart enough to comprehend the subject matter in the article I posted. If you truly think what I posted completely rebuts what I posted, then the only explanation is that you're in way over your head, and utterly incapable of ever "getting it".
Originally Posted By Donny SingleParkPassholder and I mean this with all sincerity.You haven't proven anything I said was wrong.
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder YOU didn't say anything, Rocky. Your linked article on the other hand............
Originally Posted By mawnck >>The government was picking winners and losers. Big Government bailed out Big Finance while letting average taxpayers lose their homes. Creditors of bank companies and AIG got far too good a deal at taxpayer expense. Wall Street is back to paying enormous bonuses (and whining about being demonized), while average Americans, whose tax dollars saved the Street, are still suffering. And, of course, the economy is down 7 million jobs from its peak in 2007. But something needed to be done when the financial world was on the brink of the abyss, and the government did something. No matter what your views are, you should be happy that taxpayers, almost miraculously, are coming out ahead rather than hundreds of billions of dollars behind.<< In other words, Capitalism got too inconvenient so we dumped it. In return we got a couple more years during which the inevitable collapse was delayed and the billionaires could slurp up even more GDP from the economy at large. And the taxpayers are "coming out ahead" - nominally at least - until, say, August 2nd. Or whatever other "black swan" event blows the house of cards over again. Because the bailout wasn't followed up with anything meaningful to prevent a recurrence. I expect this article is going to be one of those that we look back on with extreme irony, shaking our heads and saying "God how could we have been so stupid?"
Originally Posted By ecdc >>Yeah I was pretty disapointed in Bush for that.<< Even though it worked? I'll give Bush full credit that (unlike the current clowns in Congress) he grasped the situation (or listened to those who could) and took action. Donny, you're putting ideology blatantly before facts. Do you have ANYTHING current that proves the bailout didn't work or was a bad idea?
Originally Posted By vbdad55 <<The government was picking winners and losers. Big Government bailed out Big Finance while letting average taxpayers lose their homes. Creditors of bank companies and AIG got far too good a deal at taxpayer expense.<< exacly where I have my issues- but something needed to be done, and done quickly. I wish this could have been thought out better to serve the average taxpayer....that is where the most help is needed to day..and tomorrow
Originally Posted By vbdad55 <Even though it worked? I'll give Bush full credit that (unlike the current clowns in Congress) he grasped the situation (or listened to those who could) and took action. < post belongs in LP HoF -- a somewhat positive W post-- LOL ! You know- as many things as W screwed up, I will still take him over the baggers....
Originally Posted By hopemax I admit, I'm nervous about the success of the bailouts. I think something was necessary, and in terms of the car manufacturers seems to have done what it set out to do. But I'm nervous about the money that went to the financial institutions and since there has been substantive changes to the derivatives markets and so forth, I'm afraid that the government just gave a lot of free money that allowed them to invest in a lot of bad decisions. All the markets are up from the worst days, so banks made money, repaid and so the government made some money. But I worry about the investments the banks still hold. That they didn't use the money to clean themselves up. The credit swaps are still increasing, and with defaults on the horizon in Europe, I really hope we didn't take a 1T bomb and feed it so now it's a 2T bomb.
Originally Posted By fkurucz >>Yeah I was pretty disapointed in Bush for that.<< I was disappointed, but I wasn't surprised. The GOP does what its oligarch taskmasters tell it to do.
Originally Posted By fkurucz <<The government was picking winners and losers. Big Government bailed out Big Finance while letting average taxpayers lose their homes. Creditors of bank companies and AIG got far too good a deal at taxpayer expense.<< And to this day Wall St continues to party while Main St. burns to the ground. I understand that the banking couldn't be allowed to crash, but now we are way beyond that. Unfortunately we have no recourse with the Federal Reserve, which is preparing the 3rd round of "quantitative easing" which will benefit the banksters who will be able to but treasuries with the 0% interest loans they get from the Federal Reserve. Inflation? That only affects the little people, so who cares?
