Propaganda: "TARP Was A Success"

[kpete]

TUESDAY, APRIL 5, 2011
More Journalists Dignifying “TARP Was a Success” Propaganda



.......... there is a way in which the TARP was a complete success. It was a de facto financial coup. The regulations put the Secretary of the Treasury outside the law. The Fed has run quasi fiscal operations outside normal budgetary processes with hardly a peep from Congress (the Audit the Fed was a helpful effort to increase transparency but still fell well short of dealing with the usurping of Constitutionally mandated approvals). And this isn’t our view; Simon Johnson was early to see what was really at stake in his May 2009 Atlantic article, “The Quiet Coup“.

And we see an continuation of government dominated by financial interests in the passivity of the Obama administration at continued high levels of unemployment, when Reagan went into aggressive action at lower trigger points. Instead, we have bond vigilantes driving policy when the lessons of Latvia, Ireland, and Greece are again proving that austerity only makes debt hangovers worse.

What we need is debt reduction via restructuring and offsetting stimulus, but that means imposing losses on banks. So no matter how you try to cook the books, the political “success” of TARP is an economic disaster for everyone except its immediate beneficiaries, which include writers who have made themselves scribes to the oligarchs.

the rest:
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/04/more-journalists-dignifying-tarp-was-a-success-propaganda.html


updated to add link/pic

[exboyfil]

1. Heck yes it was a success it assured that our society

will not allow rich financial types become poor financial types. Good work if you can get it. Foolish you if you were an investor or bond holder in GM - only financial types get direct access to the U.S. Treasury.

Think about the moral hazard as you decide where to invest your money.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

2. It was a virtually complete success.

For whom the TARP succeeds, that is the question.- Donne and Finished

[bluestateguy]

3. By that standard I suppose so

The Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939 must have been a success too if the goal by which we determine success is to smash and crush all Polish resistance to the Nazi regime.

[DJ13]

4. Is there a link?

Thanx!

[SDuderstadt]

5. Yes...

we would have been SO much better off if our economy had plunged into a depression and our payments system imploded.

[bvar22]

6. Those who reaped Billions from the Bailouts...

or who had their Portfolio protected always make that claim,
but it is difficult to prove.

There are valid scenarios that indicate we (The American people) would be better off
if we had simply let the Wall Street Banks fail.




Who will STAND and FIGHT for THIS American Majority?
Lofty Rhetoric, broken promises, and excuses mean NOTHING now.
"By their WORKS you will know them,"
and by their WORKS they will be judged.

[SDuderstadt]

8. Please be specific

I'd love to see the better scenario to TARP.

I'd be willing to bet the critics of TARP here know very little detail about it.

[On the Road]

10. All These Critics Appear Able to See

is the individual executives and corporations. No clue about the effects on the entire economy and the average wage earner.

The rationale is usually "well, *I* don't think the banks would have gone under. *I* don't think the economy would have collapsed."

Ignoring, of course, that virtually everyone in a position to know did think so. And how Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, and others did in fact go under. If you are skeptical about what the banks said to the public (which you should be), look at how they behaved, and what they said to each other within the industry and the markets. I have never seen that kind of panic in the last fifty years. And now, however slowly, the country is pulling out of it with very limited cost. Nobody likes all the details of a program like this, but it's hard to see how anyone with an understanding of the situation can wish it never happened.

[SDuderstadt]

13. Agreed n/t

[girl gone mad]

27. This is not a good argument.

It was never a choice between giving unfettered bailouts to the banks or doing absolutely nothing.

Critics of TARP were insisting that congress slow down, debate the legislation, add more oversight, pre-privatize some of these insolvent institutions and make sure the deals were structured responsibly so that bad actors were not handsomely rewarded.

TARP proponents insisted that it had to be done immediately lest the financial system collapse, with subsequent blood in the streets, chaos and Martial Law.

In point of fact, the TARP crowd proved to be liars, since TARP was never actually used for the purposes for which its architects insisted it was necessary. The money wasn't even distributed until many weeks after the bill was rushed through Congress in a panicked frenzy. Meaning, we could have and should have taken the time to listen to financial experts and create a plan that wasn't such an unmitigated disaster for taxpayers, savers and workers.

[SDuderstadt]

29. "Marshall Law" (sic)

Why do I not feel the need to respond?

[girl gone mad]

31. Edited..

but, seriously..

You refuse to reply to my cogent argument because of a common spelling error?

An admission of defeat, if I've ever seen one.

[SDuderstadt]

37. Saying "marshall" when you you mean "martial" is...

not a "spelling error".

[ThomCat]

7. Even here at DU, you got shouted down if you dared to say or imply

that TARP wasn't a success. If you said that TARP wasn't the greatest thing government ever did you were called everything from a lunatic to a raging moron who knew nothing at all about reality.

Only now is it becoming safe to admit that, yes, TARP was part of a massive organized theft of government money, and a massive takeover of the economy. It played a major part in allowing banks to recover while leaving all the rest of us stuck with the entire cost of that recovery.

Congress and the Obama administration either dropped the ball or else deliberately assisted the Wall Street firms and the Fed in gaining greater dominance and control over the wealth of our nation and the economy.

[SDuderstadt]

9. TARP was enacted...

during the Bush administration.

[ThomCat]

12. Yes, we all know that.

But half of TARP was administered under Obama, and he chose to keep the people and policies in place. He COULD have chosen to dismantle it if he believed that it was bad for the economy, and if he believed that it was taking advantage of the American people and further damaging our economic well-being. He didn't. He didn't even look to see if it was doing good or harm.

He also supported the sham of the "stress tests" that supposedly "proved" that banks were financially sound, but absolutely could not have done any such thing because they were based on valuing toxic assets which had no value.

[SDuderstadt]

14. Overheated overgeneralizatiions...

aren't real convincng. It's a but more complicated than that.

[ThomCat]

15. That's not really a denial.

William Black knows how complicated it is. Try telling HIM that this is all overheated generalizations. :eyes:

http://www.videosurf.com/video/bill-moyers-journal-william-k-black-pbs-64053388?vlt=ffext&vlt_position=inline

http://www.videosurf.com/video/bill-moyers-journal-william-k-black-on-fraud-pbs-135314402?vlt=ffext&vlt_position=inline

[SDuderstadt]

16. You can take it as a denial...

dude.

[ThomCat]

17. You may mean it as one

but perhaps I should have said that you haven't presented the least shred of information to make it a credible denial.

Enough experts have come out and denounced the Obama administrations handling of TARP in the past 2 years to make it meaningful and significant.

After 2 years in the most powerful office in the world, a supposed leader doesn't get free passes anymore. You know damned well he would be getting credit for everything if it went right.

In fact, everyone WAS giving him credit for TARP when they thought it was working well. So if he can get the credit, he needs to take the responsibility too. That's how real leadership works.

[SDuderstadt]

18. I don't care whether you think it's...

a credible denial or not, dude.

Good enough?

[ThomCat]

19. So why do you keep replying?

And not even bothering to say anything, either?

:P

My original comments still stand.

[SDuderstadt]

20. Some education

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_Asset_Relief_Program

[ThomCat]

25. I've read it.

Businesses often make sure only positive information makes it into Wikipedia. They can edit content as well as anyone else. No surprise.

Is that your idea of "educating?" Searching for a single source that matches your pre-conceived notions so that you can discount anything you don't want to hear? Oh, good for you! :rofl: So much of that happens online.

I guess you're not really all that interested in education then. :P

http://articles.latimes.com/2009/apr/21/nation/na-tarp-fraud21

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjL8MR_-jWY

http://pogoblog.typepad.com/pogo/2010/03/a-tarp-program-by-any-other-name-still-needs-oversight-1.html

http://www.videosurf.com/video/nightly-news-perplexed-by-tarp-recipients-lending-to-foreign-countries-62607756?vlt=ffext&vlt_position=inline

http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/jeff-poor/2009/04/24/fireworks-kudlow-santelli-rail-against-corruption-tarp-government-private

http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2010/oct/failed-mortgage-cos-get-240-mil-run-tarp

http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/usnews/congress/1475

[Rage for Order]

26. ThomCat, clearly you're a shill for the non-monied interests!

:silly:

[ThomCat]

28. LOL!

:thumbsup:

[girl gone mad]

33. From your own source (emphasis mine):

In the original plan presented by Secretary Paulson, the government would buy troubled (toxic) assets in insolvent banks and then sell them at auction to private investor and/or companies. This plan was scratched when Paulson met with United Kingdom's Prime Minister Gordon Brown who came to the White House for an international summit on the global credit crisis. Prime Minister Brown, in an attempt to mitigate the credit squeeze in England, merely infused capital into banks via preferred stock in order to clean up their balance sheets and, in some economists' view, effectively nationalizing many banks. This plan seemed attractive to Secretary Paulson in that it was relatively easier and seemingly boosted lending more quickly. The first half of the asset purchases may not be effective in getting banks to lend again because they were reluctant to risk lending as before with low lending standards. To make matters worse, overnight lending to other banks came to a relative halt because banks did not trust each other to be prudent with their money.

(snip)

The effects of the TARP have been widely debated in large part because the purpose of the fund is not easily understood. For example, a review of investor presentations and conference calls by executives of some two dozen US-based banks by the New York Times found that "few cited lending as a priority. Further, an overwhelming majority saw the program as a no-strings-attached windfall that could be used to pay down debt, acquire other businesses or invest for the future."<64> The article cited several bank chairmen as stating that they viewed the money as available for strategic acquisitions in the future rather than to increase lending to the private sector, whose ability to pay back the loans was suspect. PlainsCapital chairman Alan B. White saw the Bush administration's cash infusion “opportunity capital”, noting, “They didn’t tell me I had to do anything particular with it.” Nonetheless, it achieved its primary purpose of providing liquidity in response to the global financial crisis of 2008–2009.

Moreover, while TARP funds have been provided to bank holding companies, those holding companies have only used a fraction of such funds to recapitalize their bank subsidiaries.

The Senate Congressional Oversight Panel created to oversee the TARP concluded on January 9, 2009: "In particular, the Panel sees no evidence that the U.S. Treasury has used TARP funds to support the housing market by avoiding preventable foreclosures". The panel also concluded that "Although half the money has not yet been received by the banks, hundreds of billions of dollars have been injected into the marketplace with no demonstrable effects on lending."

Government officials overseeing the bailout have acknowledged difficulties in tracking the money and in measuring the bailout's effectiveness.


--------------------------------------------

Hardly the picture of success.

[SDuderstadt]

38. Preventing a depression and...

preserving our payments systems sounds pretty successful to me.

[girl gone mad]

34. Try misspelling a word.

That seems to shut him up.

[ThomCat]

35. Good advice.

I'll remembre that. :P

[upi402]

23. Deliberately

This is indeed no place to speak of the elephant in the room. But put me down as it was deliberate. Obama is smart. At least you could make the case that Bush was an easily duped fool.

Americans fail to look at substance and focus on 'our team v. their team'. Or focus on insignificant margins of difference. And the huge problem is overlooked.

[ThomCat]

30. Cheering for Obama and for Democrats as if Politics was a team

sport instead of life and death matters of real policy and real issues has been a horrible problem. You're absolutely right.

Cheering for the ones who wear your team's colors just because they wear your team's, no matter what they do, or what they represent, doesn't help us.

The blue team is supposed to represent us, and that is supposed to be why we support them.

This idea that we support them unconditionally, no matter what they do, and that we don't judge whether they are or not they are really representing us well because that shows a lack of support is ridiculous. Worse, the idea that we should be blamed for their lack of good representation because it supposedly shows that we aren't showing enough support, and therefore cause their bad results, is a truly toxic.

We come first. We deserve to come first. Government is supposed to serve us, and our reps are supposed to be responsive to us. This whole cult of loyalty is twisting the whole idea of what government is supposed to be, all to support the idea that power exists for the sake of power.

But that only benefits the elite who have that power. It can't and won't ever benefit all the rest of us who depend upon the government for all the programs and services government must provide.

Education, environmental stewardship, Infrastructure development and preservation, labor standards, justice in all its forms, health care standards and disease control, safety nets for those in need, and far more...

We need these things. And none of it will come to us, all of us, equally and fairly unless we all strive to make sure that our representatives Support US, rather tolerating this movement to have us blindly supporting them.

[upi402]

32. ^+1,000 Like Bushistas exhibiting undeserved loyalty

to the very elites who use and abuse them. We have become the same animal in significant numbers.

Support must be earned and deserved. The false choice of "hold yer nose and vote for the lesser of 2 evils" has brought us to corporate rule over time. A bloodless coup over democracy. FAIL!

[rdking647]

11. Tarp

if you understand how the financial markets work you admit TARP was a success.
If your clueless than TARP was a failure

[Name removed]

24. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[wildbilln864]

21. **k & r! nt

[upi402]

22. I soooo qualified, yet was backpocket vetoed

Banksters and the Obamanistas who love them can kiss my ass.

[sad sally]

36. I think Michael Moore captured it yesterday in his piece "America is not Broke"

2. They have created a poison pill that they know you will never want to take. It is their version of mutually assured destruction. And when they threatened to release this weapon of mass economic annihilation in September of 2008, we blinked. As the economy and the stock market went into a tailspin, and the banks were caught conducting a worldwide Ponzi scheme, Wall Street issued this threat: Either hand over trillions of dollars from the American taxpayers or we will crash this economy straight into the ground. Fork it over or it's Goodbye savings accounts. Goodbye pensions. Goodbye United States Treasury. Goodbye jobs and homes and future. It was friggin' awesome and it scared the shit out of everyone. "Here! Take our money! We don't care. We'll even print more for you! Just take it! But, please, leave our lives alone, PLEASE!"

The executives in the board rooms and hedge funds could not contain their laughter, their glee, and within three months they were writing each other huge bonus checks and marveling at how perfectly they had played a nation full of suckers. Millions lost their jobs anyway, and millions lost their homes. But there was no revolt (see #1).

http://www.truth-out.org/michael-moore-america-is-not-broke68265?du