The Follies of TARP

January 30, 2009 11:41 AM

We may never know whether the bailout worked

from the FPP link: according to a new report from congressional auditors...it will be impossible to sort out which of the recent rule changes and spending programs have made a difference...

Meanwhile Geithner, Bernanke work on $700B bailout overhaul.

Also meanwhile, the SEC charges adviser with fraud linked to bailout.

Maybe it's time to let the GAO see TARP recipients' books in order to figure out where the funds are actually going--considering that the total cost could top $4 trillion.

posted by ornate insect (50 comments total)

i'll save you the trouble fo trying to figure it out: it won't work. but they'll say that it did.
posted by msconduct at 11:45 AM on January 30 [9 favorites has favorites]

Wasn't the money supposed to be used to originate loans rather than buy up banks?
posted by crapmatic at 11:46 AM on January 30

GIVE THE MONEY TO THE PEOPLE
posted by clavdivs at 11:47 AM on January 30

I have an idea. Give every citizen $10,000 and we'll put it in the banks, pay our bills, and prop up the economy.

Oh nevermind, you've already given it away to the millionaire Wall Street investment bankers that you roomed with at Yale, that paid for your reelection, that keep the middle class enslaved.
posted by plexi at 11:48 AM on January 30 [6 favorites has favorites]

Oops, hope it changes, Biden's on the job.
Oops.
posted by Mblue at 11:50 AM on January 30

What Red Ink? Wall Street Paid Hefty Bonuses
posted by homunculus at 11:55 AM on January 30

I don't know why they can't fight this economic crisis the old-fashioned way, by redefining the terms poverty and unemployment.
posted by troybob at 11:56 AM on January 30 [3 favorites has favorites]

*tents fingers*

Excellent.
posted by milarepa at 12:02 PM on January 30

"The thing goes round circularly, line by arrow it (straight to Wikipedia and a quiver) like a jerk.
posted by Mblue at 12:03 PM on January 30

Rudy says bonuses necessary for economy.
posted by billysumday at 12:07 PM on January 30

Maybe it's time to let the GAO see TARP recipients' books in order to figure out where the funds are actually going--considering that the total cost could top $4 trillion.

From the $4 trillion link:
With that in mind, he thinks that the net cost to U.S. taxpayers for a broadened bailout would be about $1 trillion to $2 trillion, or between 5% and 10% of U.S. gross domestic product. He said this figure is "in line with the experience" of other nations that have tried massive banking system restructuring.

Try again? Outragefilter doesn't mean you can't get your facts right.
posted by jckll at 12:08 PM on January 30

So tonight Im gonna party like its 1929.
posted by gman at 12:08 PM on January 30 [1 favorite has favorites]

This general statement appears to be true of pretty much every economic initiative ever made for anything more complicated than handing someone a hundred bucks and following them to K-Mart.. It's not like there's a control group. Mechanisms can be posited, certainly. We can look at correlations. Know, though ...
posted by adipocere at 12:09 PM on January 30 [2 favorites has favorites]

Know, though ...
Synchronicity.
posted by Mblue at 12:14 PM on January 30

Anybody know how many of those bonuses were triggered by "change of control" provisions in people's employment contracts? A lot of banks recently got bought out by other banks, and many higher-end employment contracts have these kinds of kickers in them. I'm wondering if there was a legal requirement to pay some of these...
posted by jenkinsEar at 12:15 PM on January 30 [1 favorite has favorites]

more info here:
Global Crisis Destroys 40% of World Wealth; Bailout to Hit $4 Trillion
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/
posted by robbyrobs at 12:19 PM on January 30

Mblue: "Oops, hope it changes, Biden's on the job.
Oops."


Biden will have a specific assignment as the new administration gets under way, however. Come Inauguration Day, he will be the working families czar...

I feel richer already.
posted by Joe Beese at 12:24 PM on January 30

Outragefilter doesn't mean you can't get your facts right.

I'm not sure what is being referred to here? The link in question is entitled Bank bailout could cost $4 trillion, and states: "The amount of working capital you'd expect the government to take into this would be around $3 trillion to $4 trillion," said Simon Johnson, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and author of its Baseline Scenario financial crisis blog.

Indeed, the quote cklennon pulls refers to the net cost to U.S. taxpayers, and not to the total cost of the bailout. But don't take my word for it; the $4 trillion figure is being floated around a lot: Schumer: bad bank estimates go up to $4 trillion
posted by ornate insect at 12:33 PM on January 30

We may never know whether the bailout worked

Of course we know that the bailout worked. Merrill Lynch paid out $3billion in bonuses right before reporting a $20billion loss and taking more TARP money. So your money is going right where it is supposed to go; into the pockets of people who already have millions of dollars.

Don't like it? Too bad, what are you going to do about it? That's right: nothing. And they're going to take more money from you soon.

(/bitter)
posted by Justinian at 12:34 PM on January 30 [1 favorite has favorites]

The credit business is basically the only thing keeping the state of Delaware from being annexed by Pennsylvania and sold back to the Dutch. Imagine you are Joe Biden. It's a hard judgment to make; as the representative of your state's polity, do you pursue something antithetical to their well-being? Do you do, essentially, what is *wrong* for your state, and what the people of your state *don't* want?

To many people (like me), it is obvious that the consumer credit industry is toxic. It requires serious reform. But people's jobs depend on it. I don't have any easy answers. Again, obviously, those people could be doing something else, but that is not a quick change to make.
posted by synaesthetichaze at 12:37 PM on January 30

The bailout was needed to avert a financial apocalypse.
The bailout will cost 4 trillion dollars.
Surely it's better to have the apocalypse and spend the 4 trillion on building roads and shit?
posted by fullerine at 12:37 PM on January 30

I really don't like trickle-down economics as justification for big bonuses. Corporate welfare is still welfare, but it's helping people the lawmakers are more likely to know.
posted by filthy light thief at 12:40 PM on January 30

considering that the total cost could top $4 trillion.

Four trillion dollars.

I have a ten year old car with two hundred thousand miles on it, and only four out of five of the gears work.

While these two things are completely unrelated, I can't help but look at the first number and wonder if people who find it meaningful have ever really had to worry about keeping an automobile worth less than $1000 running, in a sub zero mid-western winter, just so they can get to work.

Because I suspect that if they had, they would be a lot less cavalier about giving it away what amounts to the wealth of entire nations, in the form of bail-outs, to the very groups that failed us in the first place.

But then, I'm bitter and full of class-war rage right now, so my opinions are less than constructive in this area.
posted by quin at 12:41 PM on January 30 [14 favorites has favorites]

As soon as I get off work I'm gonna walk into a bank and tell them they have to give me four trillion dollars or very bad things will start happening. Should be interesting to see if I do as well as the banks did in a similar situation.
posted by The Card Cheat at 12:42 PM on January 30

I'm not sure what is being referred to here? The link in question is entitled Bank bailout could cost $4 trillion, and states: "The amount of working capital you'd expect the government to take into this would be around $3 trillion to $4 trillion," said Simon Johnson, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and author of its Baseline Scenario financial crisis blog.

Indeed, the quote cklennon pulls refers to the net cost to U.S. taxpayers, and not to the total cost of the bailout. But don't take my word for it; the $4 trillion figure is being floated around a lot: Schumer: bad bank estimates go up to $4 trillion

You wrote "could cost up to $4 trillion"

Both articles you've provided to back up that assertion say, pretty clearly, that the high-end of the COST estimates are somewhere in the $1-2 trillion range.

"Amount of working capital" != "Cost"
posted by jckll at 12:43 PM on January 30

cklennon, here are some links for you with relevant quotes:

Goldman Sachs: Bank bailouts could total $4 trillion
Reuters reports that bean counters at Goldman Sachs--seconded by New York Senator Chuck Schumer--are now suggesting that it may take $4 trillion to restore the banking system to solvency. It seems like only last week that those estimates were running in the $1 to $2 trillion range--but then again, it was only last week.

Cost of shoring up US banks may be in trillions
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The cost of restoring confidence in U.S. financial firms may reach $4 trillion (2.8 trillion) if President Barack Obama moves ahead with a "bad bank" that buys up souring assets.
The figure far exceeds even the most pessimistic estimates of how great the loan losses might be because there is so much uncertainty about default rates, which means the government may need to take on a bigger chunk of bank debt to ease concerns.

Thus, I'm not the only one using the word "cost" here, and I don't think I'm misreading the numerous news reports floating this figure. The figure appears to refer to the final cost of the bailout.

Getting a handle on these numbers has not been easy, but I believe your quibbling is with the reporters, experts and politicians who are unambiguously referring to the sum in question--and not with me.
posted by ornate insect at 12:54 PM on January 30

Four trillion dollars.

I have a ten year old car with two hundred thousand miles on it, and only four out of five of the gears work.

It's not like four billion would be any better by this argument, and that's 1000x less. All these numbers are basically infinity to a lower income person.
posted by smackfu at 1:14 PM on January 30 [1 favorite has favorites]

Truly, they set us up the bomb .

“GIVE THE MONEY TO THE PEOPLE”
S’why I give to the Human Fund: “Money for People”
Especially around Festivus.

“But then, I'm bitter and full of class-war rage right now, so my opinions are less than constructive in this area.”

On the contrary. Some butt kicking may well be in order. Nothing wrong with a little class war. Not that I have a problem with folks making millions of dollars. Or even multi-millions. I do have a beef with so much capital getting locked up that the country’s infrastructure crumbles. Capitalism in a democracy isn’t supposed to be a fiefdom. (One can argue the merits of any economic system - I’m not taking a position on that, just saying we seem to be moving backwards here into fuedalism (and appanage - especially in cook county). Lots of towns out here are talking about hiking fees since taxes aren’t going to hoist them out of their financial difficulties.)
posted by Smedleyman at 1:27 PM on January 30 [1 favorite has favorites]

A trillion here, a trillion there...

How much is a trillion anyway? I don't know that I could recognize a trillion of something. And by recognize, I mean capable of distinguishing within an order of magnitude or two.

Courtesy of those Libertarian kooks, here's a few ways to get a sense of its 'size'.

A trillion dollars is enough to:

* To buy everybody living in Los Angeles at least one Lamborghini Gallardo.
* To buy 88,052, 394' custom mega yachts; enough to stretch around ¼ of the world.
* To buy everyone living in Belize and Malta a Manhattan apartment.
* To get half of the Democratic Party into a fundraiser for Barack Obama at the $28,500 admission price.
* To give one out of every two men in the United States a Men's Presidential Rolex watch.
* To buy every woman in the United States a Tiffany Diamond Starfish Pendant.
* To get two Mitsubishi 73" HDTVs for every household in America.
* To buy four copies of The Office: Season Four on DVD, to every person on earth.
* To send everybody in America on an all-inclusive vacation to Tahiti (and some people can stay a few extra days).

AND…

$1 trillion is enough money for everyone in Buffalo, NY to buy their own 65-acre island in Panama.

This was at September prices. I'm thinking that now we could probably get a better deal on those HDTVs, and The Office: Season Four DVDs, maybe the Tahiti vacations as well.
posted by BigSky at 1:40 PM on January 30 [6 favorites has favorites]

All these numbers are basically infinity to a lower income person.

I was trying to help my seven year-old nephew understand the scale of big numbers the other day. He was complaining to his mum that she didn't need to tell him 'a million times' to do his spellings. So I asked him to guess how long it would take him to count to a million, counting 'one-kangaroo-two-kangaroo-three..' and so on, once every second. The answer, over 11 days, really surprised him. 4 trillion would take nearly 127,000 years. I think that these bailout plans are predicated on ordinary people just never grasping the sheer scale of the amounts involved. If we did, there'd be blood and guns in the streets.
I remember a really good SciAm column by Douglas Hofstadter about this from ages ago, but can't find it online. Anyone know where I might find it?
posted by punilux at 1:46 PM on January 30 [2 favorites has favorites]

As soon as I get off work I'm gonna walk into a bank and tell them they have to give me four trillion dollars or very bad things will start happening. Should be interesting to see if I do as well as the banks did in a similar situation.

The secret is you have to have enough guns and enough balls to back up what you say. Any thing below like 500 hundred heavily armed psychopathic goons and you'll just be killed.

But take the initiative to kill the board of Lehman's or Sachs, kill all their families, take their estates and all their property, call your self Generalismo and use that money to by F-18's, and eventually you'll be invited out to lunch by a congressman.
posted by tkchrist at 1:46 PM on January 30 [1 favorite has favorites]

"buy"
posted by tkchrist at 1:49 PM on January 30

See, that's the problem. We're buying cars, yachts, HDTVs and vacations with that money. Spend it on MetaFilter memberships. More outrage bang for the buck.
posted by netbros at 1:49 PM on January 30

$4 trillion is enough to meet the Millennium Development Goals on health, education, water, and sanitation for well over 50 years.

Sickening. Absolutely sickening.

Around 700 million people live on less than a dollar per day. $4 trillion divided between them would pay their daily wages for over 15 years. (Assuming my vague calculations are correct)
posted by knapah at 3:11 PM on January 30

What ever happened to slave reparations? As long as the federal government is giving out tons of money to random people, why not set aside a trillion dollars to distribute among all African-Americans? This is the perfect time, when the govt. is throwing money around like crazy, anyway. Think of all the good karma....
posted by Faze at 3:15 PM on January 30

But take the initiative to kill the board of Lehman's or Sachs, kill all their families, take their estates and all their property, call your self Generalismo and use that money to by F-18's

I've been waiting to see if some sense of real anger at these wild rewards nobody really deserves (let alone some suits managing a paper-shuffling business that played a central role in wrecking the economy), would bubble up into at least fantasy violence, like maybe banker-killing hip-hop. This is the first instance I've seen.

I'm a bit torn, actually. I feel like it's obvious that vigilantism is problematic and especially that murder is wrong. On the other hand, it sure seems like the institutions of society aren't gonna do jack to punish many of the offenders here, and you have to wonder what it might take to give these people pause before they raise their next huge crop of fail at the expense of everyone else.
posted by namespan at 3:19 PM on January 30 [1 favorite has favorites]

"These people are idiots. You can't use taxpayer money to pay out $18-billion in bonuses... What planet are these people on?"
posted by ornate insect at 3:25 PM on January 30

Metafilter: Some butt kicking may well be in order.
posted by vibrotronica at 3:26 PM on January 30

4 trillion divided by about 300 million citizens works out to about $13, 333 for each of us. Or it could have, I guess.
I could've gotten that root canal I've needed for a year or so with that...
posted by localhuman at 5:03 PM on January 30

On the other hand, 13K would do absolutely nothing to change the financial obligations in my life. That would take care of approximately 1/4 of my student loans; or my mom's house payments for a little over a year (only 29 to go!); or 1 semester of my sister's (eventual) university education.

It would make a lot of difference to a lot people, I'm sure. But it wouldn't accomplish anything to fix the economy, as such. I mean, sure, while we're giving trillions away, why not just hand out some cash for god's sake? But I don't think we should pretend that giving money away will allow the nation to reach any meaningful goals. Directed, focused spending on public works, social programs, and technological advancements that actually improve millions of people's lives will do more good than 13K in my bank account.

(by the way, if you gave the 4 trillion to taxpayers only, it would be about 28K per person)
posted by synaesthetichaze at 5:40 PM on January 30

What I'm saying is, I'd rather have a job for the next 30 years than 13K right now.
posted by synaesthetichaze at 5:42 PM on January 30

I have to say it's really this way for any economic situation. Some say that FDR helped keep the depression from getting even worse, while I've heard libertarians argue he poured salt in the wound. And didn't Reagen's economists take credit for every positive move in the economy, but blame the federal reserve for the lows?
posted by mccarty.tim at 5:43 PM on January 30

I have to say it's really this way for any economic situation. Some say that FDR helped keep the depression from getting even worse, while I've heard libertarians argue he poured salt in the wound.

There's a cottage industry of conservative historians who write books about how much the New Deal sucked. I should really get into that racket. Easy money!

Here's my first paragraph:

The New Deal sucked. It made things worse. Stimulus spending never works. Tax cuts always work. Here are some cherry picked stats and out-of-context anecdotes to prove my assertion...
posted by diogenes at 6:18 PM on January 30

I sympathize with y'all, but a) these are mostly investments, not giveaways, so at least theoretically we should get most of this back in a few years (google "TARP recoupment"); and b) how fast do you think prices would go up if everybody in America suddenly had an extra few thousand dollars?
posted by designbot at 6:31 PM on January 30

"To buy everybody living in Los Angeles at least one Lamborghini Gallardo... To buy 88,052, 394' custom mega yachts; enough to stretch around ¼ of the world."

I suspect you'd be pretty popular if you did this though.

"I feel like it's obvious that vigilantism is problematic and especially that murder is wrong. On the other hand, it sure seems like the institutions of society aren't gonna do jack to punish many of the offenders here"

There are ways to bring pressure to bear. Vigilantism politically, is problematic, but Jefferson had some things to say about the will of the people, all that.
Really, it's our government and our money. I mean, quite literally, ours. The money in your bank, mine, etc. It is 'ours.' Seriously - who would take a bunch of small green pieces of paper in exchange for something tangible like a chainsaw if we all weren't in on this consensual thoughtform that it's worth something.
Just a matter of placing it where it's needed and doing so (somewhat) fairly. Almost like directing energy or water really.
But I don't buy into this idea that it's vigilantism to redress public grievances.
I mean - who gave you the right to vote?
Somewhere along the line folks got sick of not having any say over their lives and decided they should vote on stuff. And people resisted and hired other people to fight against that, etc.
So I'd ask in counterpoint - what gives THEM the right? Some inherent 'nobility'?
posted by Smedleyman at 7:42 PM on January 30

How much is a trillion anyway?

Here's what one billion dollars looks like in $100 bills. Each layer of cash on each pallet is worth several million dollars. So, just imagine a thousand such piles of money.
posted by sfenders at 5:30 AM on January 31

We may never know whether the bailout worked

fwiw, just saw this question on bayesian updating that i thought was interesting and worth contemplating :P

In September 2008, Bryan Caplan issued a challenge (revisited yesterday) for people to say in advance how they would update their prior belief that the bailout would prevent disaster, conditional on observing no disaster. ("Disaster" was defined as greater than 8% unemployment). He was absolutely right to issue that challenge, because otherwise people could say that their view was confirmed whatever happened.

cheers!
posted by kliuless at 8:59 AM on January 31

No ‘Hire American’ or ‘Buy American’ Requirements in Stimulus?

By: amberglow!
posted by homunculus at 10:37 AM on January 31

Goldman Sachs: Bank bailouts could total $4 trillion
Reuters reports that bean counters at Goldman Sachs--seconded by New York Senator Chuck Schumer--are now suggesting that it may take $4 trillion to restore the banking system to solvency. It seems like only last week that those estimates were running in the $1 to $2 trillion range--but then again, it was only last week.

TARP is only a drop in the bucket. In addition to the TARP funds released by the Treasury, The Federal Reserve has already given out MORE than Two Trillion Dollars. Who got these funds? The Fed won't say.
posted by Fuzzy Monster at 12:51 PM on January 31 [1 favorite has favorites]

"Congress is demanding more transparency from the Fed and Treasury on bailout,"

Lemme just get that straight in my head - the Federal Reserve and the Treasury aren't cluing in our elected representatives as to what they're doing with our money?

Hell, that's almost enough to make me want to google Ron Paul.
posted by Smedleyman at 8:00 PM on January 31