Special I.G - a damaging account of TARP

Special Inspector General Neil Barofsky, "[a] life-long Democrat who donated money to the Obama campaign,"[2]...

Government officials, he says, eagerly served Wall Street interests at the public’s expense, and regulators were captured by the very industry they were supposed to be regulating.

... after canvassing other inspector generals for guidance, he writes, he learned of different priorities: maintaining and possibly increasing budgets, appearing to be active — and not making enemies.

“The suspicions that the system is rigged in favor of the largest banks and their elites, so they play by their own set of rules to the disfavor of the taxpayers who funded their bailout, are true,” Mr. Barofsky said in an interview last week. “It really happened. These suspicions are valid.”

... Another skirmish involved the department’s ill-conceived loan modification plan, known as the Home Affordable Modification Program.... It barely got off the ground, and few homeowners have received the help they hoped for.

THIS was just one of many examples from Mr. Barofsky’s 16-month tenure, during which, he says, Washington abandoned Main Street while rescuing Wall Street.

“So much of what’s wrong with Dodd-Frank is it trusts the regulators to be completely immune to the corrupting influences of the banks,”

(read the whole story)

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/22/busin ... odayspaper

Mr. Barofsky joins the ranks of those who believe that another crisis is likely because of the failed response to this one. “Incentives are baked into the system to take advantage of it for short-term profit,” he said. “The incentives are to cheat, and cheating is profitable because there are no consequences.”

Damn that George Bush. Why did he have to sign those programs into law?

And Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid, and Dodd, and Frank.

Yes, thank you Dodd and Frank for not throwing twice as much money at it.

The TARP program originally authorized expenditures of $700 billion. The Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act reduced the amount authorized to $475 billion..

Raees wrote: Yes, thank you Dodd and Frank for not throwing twice as much money at it.

The TARP program originally authorized expenditures of $700 billion. The Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act reduced the amount authorized to $475 billion..

This article is about the mismanagement of the money... I don't care if 475 billion was mismanaged or 700 billion. Your deflection failed.

That damn George Bush...

As much as I disliked it, it had to be done. If the nation had lost faith in their banks, there would have been a run on them and the world economy would have gone into another Great Depression.

One bright spot to Dodd-Frank, stockholders now get to vote up or down on executive compensation plans.

Raees wrote: Yes, thank you Dodd and Frank for not throwing twice as much money at it.

The TARP program originally authorized expenditures of $700 billion. The Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act reduced the amount authorized to $475 billion..

And the really good news is that Congress then figured that since there was $225 Billion sitting around that had been appropriated from the Treasury already, they should find some new way to spend it.

And the knuckle-draggers just keep on keepin'-on....

Democracy4Sale wrote: And the knuckle-draggers just keep on keepin'-on....

Interesting... this thread was not about Obamacare or any of the wars in the middle east. LJ... are you having trouble concentrating today?