In a new paper released today, entitled “How the Great Recession Was Brought to an End,” prominent economists Alan Blinder and Mark Zandi say that the stimulus, stress tests, emergency Federal Reserve maneuvers and Troubled Asset Relief Program saved the economy from collapse.
This morning, the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, Neil Barofsky, released his latest quarterly report on the state of the Obama administration’s signature effort to calm the financial markets — from banking to credit to housing. In it, he lambastes the Home Affordable More…
Today, Neil Barofsky, the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or SIGTARP — in layman’s terms, the government’s watchdog over the program to stabilize the banking sector and housing market — released a quarterly report on how things are going. TARP programs did well to stabilize More…
The head of the new consumer financial protection bureau will be one of the most important figures in the financial world. This has led to serious speculation over who President Obama might name; concern over who will lead the CFPB even led Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) to temporarily More…
Today, the Congressional Oversight Panel — the independent watchdog that oversees the Obama administration’s Troubled Asset Relief Program — issued a report slamming TARP’s progress in aiding small businesses. The report notes that despite the administration’s efforts to encourage banks to lend to small businesses, “it is not clear More…
Last night, the Senate agreed to a proposal by Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) to reduce the funds available to TARP, the Troubled Asset Relief Program, from $700 billion to $550 billion. Bennet’s amendment to Sen. Chris Dodd’s (D-Conn.) financial regulatory reform proposal also requires bailout funds repaid by Wall Street More…
It’s earnings week on Wall Street, and analysts had estimated that megabank Citigroup would break even in the first quarter. This morning, it announced a $4.4 billion profit — meaning the bank made around $49 million a day in the first three months of the year. Sure, markets More…
For an administration that once said that it would pay more attention to Main Street than Wall Street, the failure of the its signature initiative for Main Streeters — the mortgage modification program — should be a wake-up call that it’s far past time to pay attention to the problems More…
After banks received billions of dollars when their risky investments failed, most economists understand that, without strict controls, markets and banks are going to continue to operate as though, if banks continue to fail because of risky investments, the government will continue to bail them out. That moral hazard, when More…
Since George W. Bush took office, commercial banks have more than doubled their annual federal lobbying budgets, to great effect. In addition to securing a nearly industry-wide bailout in the wake of a financial crisis spurred by their own risky investments, banking lobbyists notched many successes in More…
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