WASHINGTON (AFP) – Handing over 700 billion dollars of taxpayer money to Wall Street bankers who caused the global economic crisis was never going to be popular.
And so it proved for the much maligned Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, which will begin its slow wind-down on Sunday.
Two years to the day after it was enacted, the always controversial bailout has a mixed legacy of financial success and political derision.
As far as costs go, TARP has been an unmitigated success story.
The program -- introduced to prop up rapidly failing financial markets -- is now projected to cost the government less than 50 billion dollars, a bargain considering the economic growth that could have been lost.
Pending a decent sale of the government's stakes in Citigroup, AIG and General Motors, the US taxpayer may realistically make a gross profit.
Yahoo/AFP
No comments:
Post a Comment