TARP Bottom Line

TARP Books Closed (give or not give less than $ 1 billion).

According to Lew, the total profit for American taxpayers on TARP investments stands at $15.35 billion. The NYT report added, “Less than $1 billion in taxpayer funds remain scattered in about 35 community banks around the country, but with the sale on Thursday of the government’s last 54.9 million shares of Ally Financial … the Treasury declared the bailouts done.”

For some years now, I have been writing that estimates of the cost of TARP were probably over-estimates (I didn't speculate wether it would actually be profitable). I told you so. It is true that TARP was small beens compared to the much huger Fed bailout efforts. Also TARP profits are tiny compared to the huge immense gigantic profits from the Fed's efforts and the separate huge immense gigantic profits from the bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddi Mac. In those cases, we are discussing extremely high profits which are, at the least, among to the highest profits ever reported in human history.