Quote:
Originally Posted by Hack&Lube
I wish I could get a "loan" from the government and only have to pay back 10% of it and consider it paid off! 
Also, why aren't the banks paying back the American people for that stupid buyout |
From mid-December . . .
Citigroup and Wells Fargo & Co. won agreements to begin extracting themselves from the U.S. government's grip by paying back a total of $45 billion in aid, marking a major milestone in the year-long effort to rescue the American financial system.
The U.S. financial system faced the possibility of collapse a year ago. With the deals announced Monday, however, banks will have repaid $161 billion of the $245 billion in capital that was pumped into about 700 institutions as part of the Troubled Asset Relief Program. Citigroup and Wells are the last major lenders to return their TARP money.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...479204352.html
Ensuring certain global financial institutions remained in business was necessary - even as you were holding your nose to make it happen.
Whether or not bailing out the automakers was necessary is another thing.
At the time, I used the analogy that financial institutions represented the blood flowing through the global economy whereas GM and Chrysler represented an arm and a leg.
You can live without an arm and a leg but you can't live without blood flowing through your body.
Eventually, lending to financial institutions may in fact turn into a rather sizeable money-maker for the USA government.
Cowperson