US to make profit from bailouts

US to make profit from bailouts, Treasury says
BBC News

The US will make a profit from bailing out the nation's banks and carmakers at the height of the financial crisis, the Treasury Department has said.

The bank bailouts may result in a return of $2bn (£1.3bn), the Treasury said in its latest projections for the government's response to the crisis.

And the recovering auto industry has added 230,000 jobs as a result.

The recession was the worst since the Great Depression and $19.2tn of wealth was wiped out, it said.

"Although the economy is getting stronger, we have a long way to go to fully repair the damage the crisis has left behind," the Treasury said.

"We are still living with the broader economic cost of the crisis, which can be seen in high unemployment."

The vast majority of the projected returns - more than $179bn - come from the Federal Reserve's huge investments and loans to banks.

The Fed and the Treasury together invested $182bn just to save insurance giant AIG.

Tarp

In terms of the bank bailouts, the much-maligned Troubled Asset Relief Program (Tarp) that provided money to more than 700 banks has already realised a $19bn profit.

The bailout of carmakers General Motors and and Chrysler - which was also part of Tarp, cost $22bn, the Treasury said.

"But the cost of a disorderly liquidation to families and businesses across the country that rely on the auto industry would have been far higher," it added.

The US Treasury still owns more than 30% of GM's ordinary shares.

In the end, the Treasury expects to make $22bn from Tarp's bank bailouts and $2bn on Tarp's loans to restart the credit markets, offsetting the auto bailouts.

Kinda confused. By most accounts it is the Federal Reserve Bank that will make a nice profit from this. I am confused because the FRB is not part of government, but is a private bank. So how does that relate to a profit for our government???

Of course I am having a hard time checking the accuracy of the article. Most media outlets are partisan and.....well....some say we will turn a profit while others say it is just fudging numbers. Damn but I hate today's media!!!

Marconius wrote:

Of course I am having a hard time checking the accuracy of the article. Most media outlets are partisan and.....well....some say we will turn a profit while others say it is just fudging numbers. Damn but I hate today's media!!!

The BBC is usually fairly neutral in British politics, and they have no horse in this race.

Bryant wrote:

Marconius wrote:

Of course I am having a hard time checking the accuracy of the article. Most media outlets are partisan and.....well....some say we will turn a profit while others say it is just fudging numbers. Damn but I hate today's media!!!

The BBC is usually fairly neutral in British politics, and they have no horse in this race.

Yeah, you're right, but it still never ceases to amaze me that jornalism has become sensationalized and biased over the past 20 years. Whatever happened to the US media? Just report the facts people and let the chips fall where they may. Quit trying to persuade me to a certain point of view. I am at a point where I don't really trust any media source.

I blame Miles and his damn infovegan thread. I have been trying to get my news from several sources, but the difference in presentation and editing is really starting to piss me off. I've really started to notice verbage and how it is used to create a response. For someone who does technical writing, this crap is almost unbearable. I had to stop trying to follow the Trayvon Martin case. That one subject has really snowballed to where I no longer trust any info on that subject.

Marconius wrote:
Yeah, you're right, but it still never ceases to amaze me that jornalism has become sensationalized and biased over the past 20 years. Whatever happened to the US media? Just report the facts people and let the chips fall where they may. Quit trying to persuade me to a certain point of view. I am at a point where I don't really trust any media source.

Coincidentally, I just found this blog post on this subject this morning.....

Miles1 wrote:

Marconius wrote:
Yeah, you're right, but it still never ceases to amaze me that jornalism has become sensationalized and biased over the past 20 years. Whatever happened to the US media? Just report the facts people and let the chips fall where they may. Quit trying to persuade me to a certain point of view. I am at a point where I don't really trust any media source.

Coincidentally, I just found this blog post on this subject this morning.....

Yeah, but the writer of that blog is part of the problem as well. She admits to wanting to "right the wrongs" and that was her primary goal of getting into journalism. Sounds like a Zinnite to me (Zinn wrote History for the People with the expressed reason of portraying tUSA in nothing but a negative light so he cherry picked when he wrote his book). This feeling is a bias no matter how you wanna cut it. She thinks Fox news is a joke, but she thinks MSNBC is real....comeon man.

As I've said before...one cannot bitch that the rich do not pay their fair share unless you yourself pay something. I know you think that the claim that 1/2 of tUSA pays no taxes is a fudgery, but payroll taxes are not income taxes. Payroll taxes go to social security and medicare.....not to revenue generation. It is not the same thing. I paid over 35000 in federal income taxes for the 2011 year and if the rates are raised I will pay even more. If the Buffet rule is passed it will affect my retirement savings and my goal of early retirement might not be realized. I am sorry for all those grasshoppers out there, but they should not want us ants to take care of them. Maybe they should have made the same sacrifices as us ants did.