TARP

Must watch clip. Rantings about the Fed and the credit card industry.

Goldman Sachs has redeemed those pesky TARP warrants that have been generating so much consternation to PR offices across bailed out Wall Street. Well, van Praag scratched his head on this one, and this light bulb came on: I know, we will put a subheader for what a great benefit to taxpayers out inability to repurchase the warrants for 1 cent was.

Today several financial companies were given permission to repay their TARP crutches. The market yawned. As expected, nowhere in Geithner's prepared statement was there even a brief mention of that "other" crutch, the TLGP subsidies that banks have used over the past 6 months.

SCOTUS blog reporting that according to a response filed by the Solicitor General Elena Kagan on behalf of the United States of America, no court, not even the Supreme Court, has an authority to rule on the applicability of the TARP funds, previously designated exclusively for financial company bail outs, for the Chrysler case.

Update: Just as the SPY is about to drop, guess who start gobbling up 5-10k blocks of SPY. $10 in TARP money to the first who guesses.

JPM making sure that no Dow dip goes unpunished.

Update: Just as the SPY is about to drop, guess who start gobbling up 5-10k blocks of SPY. $10 in TARP money to the first who guesses.

JPM making sure that no Dow dip goes unpunished.

Not too surprising that the man who buys and sells banks (at one point for a profit, lately, not so much) believes that the bank bailout package is inadequate. Where is Bill Gross to chime in how the Fed needs to buy $1 metric (as opposed to the bankrupt royal equivalent) quadrillion of Treasuries stat?

Equity Private (here and here) has put together some interesting points of when/why/how/under what conditions the banks may cross the TARP repayment finish line first, and as a result doom the stragglers to another price pop of at least 50% (shh, the market works in mysterious ways these days).

Life insurer Genworth Financial dropped 22% after the Office of Thrift and Supervision said it had declined the company's application to become a savings and loan holding company.

In what should likely be a much more publicized piece of information, the Congressional Budget Office doubled the projected cost of the TARP bailout plan to $356 billion, versus an earlier estimate of $189 billion: an increase of $167 billion on the taxpayer's dime. According to the March CBO report, the total revised deficit under the Obama budget will hit $1.8 trillion in 2009 (and then never go negative pretty much in perpetuity, in other words deficit forever):

In what should likely be a much more publicized piece of information, the Congressional Budget Office doubled the projected cost of the TARP bailout plan to $356 billion, versus an earlier estimate of $189 billion: an increase of $167 billion on the taxpayer's dime. According to the March CBO report, the total revised deficit under the Obama budget will hit $1.8 trillion in 2009 (and then never go negative pretty much in perpetuity, in other words deficit forever):

Or Zombie Banks 1, Taxpayers 0.

Or Zombie Banks 1, Taxpayers 0.

Or Zombie Banks 1, Taxpayers 0.

The administration's draconian enforcement of bonus cuts for "distressed banks" has made Lloyd Blankfein and a slew of Wall Street executives hold their breath until they get the details of Geithner's stress test in order to immediately repay their portion of TARP (although it is unclear if Warren Buffett will dump another billion or so into Goldman at this point). So what will be the likely metrics for the stress test and which banks will be able to pass the test, in order to be on their merry way to TARP repayment?