Didn't almost all of the TARP money loaned out, get paid back? I'm pretty certain I had read a couple of years ago that nearly all of the money given out was paid back...?
Are these donations or lobbying funds for 1 year or since the initial bailout? Did lobbying funds increase from what they were running before the bailout vs. after the bailout? Can't tell from the chart...no dates or time period is on there...? That could be interesting to see and compare...
Great response, as always, C4A.
Maybe you could run some workshops for your fellow Dims about how to critique a post?
Oh, never mind, what am I talking about? lololol
Anyway, While the TARP money was claimed to have been fully repaid (these guys have so many accounting strategies and revolving doors with the government, it is hard to separate them any more) the Quantitative Easing money will never be paid back. That wont happen because the Federal Reserve bought MBS and other securities for their original market price and what they paid for them did not reflect the current price at that time which was $0.
This restoration of asset value for the banks cost US tax payers $4 trillion as the Federal Reserve used our nations currency to pay for these equities, in essence we paid for them through inflationary effects of $4 trillion pumped into the economy. I know inflation has been low the past few years, but it would have been even lower had the Federal Reserve not handed out $4 trillion.
And you can be sure that when politicians do favors with our tax payer dollars to corporate elites, they expect to see a fraction of that money kicked back to them.
The spreadsheet is only a valuable tool that these idiots gave the world by putting the bail out money alongside the kickback contributions. And that is BAD government practice if not illegal whether the TARP money was ever paid back in full or not.
