The Greatest Swindle Ever Sold

That $700 billion bailout has since grown into a more than $12 trillion commitment by the US government and the Federal Reserve. About $1.1 trillion of that is taxpayer money--the TARP money and an additional $400 billion rescue of mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The TARP now includes twelve separate programs, and recipients range from megabanks like Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase to automakers Chrysler and General Motors.

Seven months in, the bailout's impact is unclear. The Treasury Department has used the recent "stress test" results it applied to ninteen of the nation's largest banks to suggest that the worst might be over; yet the International Monetary Fund, as well as economists like New York University professor and economist Nouriel Roubini and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman predict greater losses in US markets, rising unemployment and generally tougher economic times ahead.

Given the lack of transparency and accountability, don't expect taxpayers to be able to object too much. After all, remarkably little is known about how TARP recipients have used the government aid received. Nonetheless, recent government reports, Congressional testimony and commentaries offer those patient enough to pore over hundreds of pages of material glimpses of just how Wall Street friendly the bailout actually is. Here, then, based on the most definitive data and analyses available, are six of the most blatant and alarming ways taxpayers have been scammed by the government's $1.1-trillion, publicly funded bailout.

www.thenation.com...

The article goes on to list the ways the scams are happening:

1. By overpaying for its TARP investments, the Treasury Department provided bailout recipients with generous subsidies at the taxpayer's expense.
   
2. As the government has no real oversight over bailout funds, taxpayers remain in the dark about how their money has been used and if it has made any difference.
   
3. The bailout's newer programs heavily favor the private sector, giving investors an opportunity to earn lucrative profits and leaving taxpayers with most of the risk.
   
4. The government has no coherent plan for returning failing financial institutions to profitability and maximizing returns on taxpayers' investments.
   
5. The bailout's focus on Wall Street mega-banks ignores smaller banks serving millions of American taxpayers that face an equally uncertain future.
   
6. The bailout encourages the very behaviors that created the economic crisis in the first place instead of overhauling our broken financial system and helping the individuals most affected by the crisis.
   

This should be a slap upside anyone's head, who thinks that the government has your best interests in mind.

Its very good of you to post this information that should be quite obvious to anyone with a smidgen of common sense left. Bailing out banks is as stupid as putting your toe into the spinning wheel of a speeding bicycle.

I like this one: The government has no coherent plan for returning failing financial institutions to profitability and maximizing returns on taxpayers' investments.

Oh they have a plan it just consists of this:

(1) Give money to banks.
(2) Screw tax payers.
(3) ...?
(4) Profit!

I'm stunned, and yet not surprised at all.

Too bad the government will never track every single penny that it gives out, and then demand that that money, plus interest, be repaid within a certain time frame.