Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner appeared before the Senate Finance Committee today to push the Administration’s proposal for a Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee, more commonly known as the Bank Tax. The purpose of the fee is to [M]ake sure that the direct costs of TARP are paid for by the major financial institutions, not by the [...]
Posts Tagged ‘TARP’
The Looming Budget Battle over the Bank Tax
Posted in Budget, Finance, Politics, tagged Banks, Budget, Deficit, Finance, TARP, Taxes on May 4, 2010 | 1 Comment »
How Did Treasury Vote Its Citigroup Shares?
Posted in Finance, Politics, tagged Citigroup, Finance, TARP on April 20, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
The United States Treasury is Citigroup’s largest common shareholder, owning 7.7 billion shares, or about 27% of the company. Which raised an interesting issue at today’s annual meeting: how should the Treasury vote its shares? Treasury answered as follows: As we have previously stated, Treasury is a reluctant shareholder in private companies and intends to dispose [...]
Goldman Really Did Overpay for Its TARP Warrants
Posted in Finance, tagged Finance, TARP, Warrants on January 21, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Yesterday, Treasury released a comprehensive report on the disposition of TARP warrants through 12/31/2009. It’s a font of fascinating information–at least for fellow TARP warrant aficionados. Treasury apparently did quite well when it negotiated with banks that wanted to repurchase their TARP warrants. I am still a fan of auctions, but you have to give [...]
The Budget Deficit Keeps Rising
Posted in Budget, tagged Budget, CBO, FDIC, GSE, TARP on January 8, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
The federal government racked up a $389 billion deficit during the first three months of the fiscal year (October through December), according to estimates released by the Congressional Budget Office yesterday. That’s $56 billion more than during the first quarter of last year, almost a 17% increase. (A portion of that increase is due to [...]
The Coming Budget Battle over TARP and Jobs
Posted in Budget, Politics, tagged Budget, CBO, jobs, TARP on January 5, 2010 | 1 Comment »
The House and Senate appear to be on a collision course about how to pay for a new jobs bill (aka a stimulus bill). The issue? Whether Congress can pay for new jobs programs by cutting back on TARP. The House embraced that approach in the bill it passed before Christmas. That bill–H.R. 2847, the [...]
TARP Repayments Reach $164 Billion
Posted in Finance, tagged Finance, TARP on December 24, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
An upbeat news release from the Treasury Department as we approach the holiday break: Wells Fargo and Citigroup have repaid $45 billion in TARP money, bringing total repayments to $164 billion. In addition, Treasury now expects that the portion of TARP that stabilized the banking system will actually generate a profit for taxpayers. (Of course, [...]
Talking about TARP and Chairman Bernanke
Posted in Budget, Economy, Finance, Macroeconomics, Politics, tagged Bernanke, Federal Reserve, TARP on December 17, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
The Business News Network of Canada interviewed me yesterday about TARP and Fed Chairman Bernanke’s “Person of the Year” award from Time Magazine. Here’s a link to the video of the interview. Going in, I was focused on the following talking points: Within current budget rules, the Congress can indeed use unspent TARP money to [...]
Another Issue With Redirecting TARP Money
Posted in Budget, Finance, tagged Budget, TARP on December 14, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Last week I noted two challenges that Congress will face if it wants to use unused TARP money to “pay for” new spending efforts. The first is that each dollar of redirected TARP money generates only 50 cents in budget “savings” (because TARP budgeting uses credit principles that immediately recognize the potential for some money [...]
Mythical Budget Savings from Cutting TARP
Posted in Budget, Finance, Regulation, tagged Budget, Finance, Regulation, TARP on December 9, 2009 | 9 Comments »
The TARP news continues fast and furious. This afternoon’s installment involves the House’s financial regulation bill, officially known as H.R. 4173, the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009. That bill would make many changes to financial regulation, one of which – enhanced dissolution authority for financial firms that run into severe trouble [...]
Treasury Extends, but Limits, TARP
Posted in Budget, Finance, Politics, tagged Budget, Finance, TARP on December 9, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Well that was quick. This morning Treasury Secretary Geithner laid out the administration’s vision for TARP, answering the questions I posed yesterday. As expected, Secretary Geithner is using his authority to extend the TARP program to October 3, 2010 (it otherwise would have expired at the end of this month). As I’ve suggested in earlier [...]
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