And the Treasury can’t really say how the TARP’s doing, because they don’t think asking the banks to account for Uncle Sam’s money is a good thing. Much better to push things off past 2012 and hope for the best.
Gorilla: “Transparency is where you can see millions of homes in foreclosure, but fewer banks doing anything about it. With fewer competitors, the new TARP slogan is the old TARP slogan: We do our part, so banks don’t have to!”
Uncle Sam’s decided on the firms that will be paid by the taxpayers to buy some toxic assets from our great Wall Street subsidiaries, who are also being paid by the taxpayers.
But apparently, there’s a 404 error when it comes to disclosing what prices are being paid for all this junk. The banks who are selling don’t want to say how much the assets have been marked down. The Treasury doesn’t want to say whether the subsidies will be used to pay a higher price to the banks.
So, yet again, an Administration that says it believes in transparency doesn’t practice what it preaches.
Gorilla says: “If we knew what this stuff is actually worth, then we’d have some idea as to how much we’ll be continuing to bankroll Wall Street. If the toxic asset banks aren’t in fact zombies, then we might be able to say something good about the prospects for economic recovery.”
Far better, says Treasury, if we whisper quietly among ourselves, click our heels together three times, and imagine we’re meeting Professor Marvel for the very first time.
