Watchdog Says TARP Helped End Economic Panic

[babylonsister]

Year-End Audit Finds TARP Program Effective

By JACKIE CALMES
Published: December 9, 2009


WASHINGTON — The independent panel that oversees the government’s financial bailout program concluded in a year-end review that, despite flaws and lingering problems, the program “can be credited with stopping an economic panic.”

The Congressional Oversight Panel, which issued the report, was created in October 2008 by the same law that established the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program. The panel has often been critical of the Treasury Department’s management of the bailout operation, especially at its start in the Bush administration but also under the Obama administration.

In the latest monthly report released on Wednesday, the panel again criticized the Treasury Department under Secretary Timothy F. Geithner for “failure to articulate clear goals or to provide specific measures of success for the program” as it has morphed over time from rescuing financial institutions to propping up securitization markets, auto manufacturers and home mortgages in danger of default. The panel also described the program’s foreclosure mitigation efforts as inadequate.

Its assessment coincides with the Obama administration’s expansion of TARP yet again, to extend credit to small businesses that cannot get loans from still-skittish banks. President Obama highlighted the new mandate in his economic speech on Tuesday, saying that the bailout program should now work for Main Street as well as Wall Street.

more...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/10/business/economy/10audit.html?hp

[FBaggins]

1. Native says witchdoctor ended drought.

"Witchdoctor danced... drought ended... therefore witchdoctor ended drought"

Other tribesmen responsible for hiring the witchdoctor to end the drought were concerned that other factors might later be shown to have played a role... so the press release was changed to "Tribal Subcomittee for Rain's Return says witchdoctor HELPED end drought".

Heck... can't prove them wrong... so why not claim the moon and the stars too?

[Are_grits_groceries]

2. If Elizabeth Warren gives TARP credit,

then it is deserved. She has been a fierce and consistent critic of the financial system and those in charge of it. Warren has rarely had anything positive to say about what she has observed.

If she is willing to give TARP some credit, then I will give it some credence. Warren has been very skeptical of the whole shebang, but in totality she thinks it did help avert a bigger crisis.

[Toots]

3. IMO the only one's panicked were the too large to fail banks and investment firms

Or Insurance giants like AIG. They were panicked they were going to go belly up and convinced folks like Obama that if they went down the entire country would go down with them. I never actually bought that crap but then who am I to make such decisions...IMO it was another heist of the American Treasury. One thing Republicans do extremely well is rid America of it's money..Just like the old saying about a fool and their money..