I personally think the mans an idiot. I hope he gets a subpoena

but the government never went in with the with the goal of maximizing returns, and to act as if that were the intent of the TARP at this point is to revise history

Let me state first off the man never put out or set guidelines for how the TARP funds should be used. He gave money to banks that didn't need the relief, are you kidding me?

Paulson did what he had to do with a horribly under-educated and financially ignorant congress. The simple fact is that the government was and is not a profit seeking entity and to make that jump is simply wrong. Initially all the furor was about overpaying for the actual underlying assets (which was actually the only way to prevent further writedowns). They changed that and now the complaint is that certain investors will receive greater returns than the government.

Simply, either you help out the system or you gauge it and create a nationalized monstrosity that Marcy Kaptur can now have a say in. Screw the politicians and understand that Paulson did what he had to do to recapitalize banks to avoid runs. Also, if you dont hire industry men who are you goint to hire? The guys would couldnt make it in private industry and work for government desks?

Spinaltap... Congress acknowledges their ignorance of the financial markets. Thats why they gave the TARP responsibility to Wall Street veteran and former GS CEO, Paulson. He clearly exhibited nothing but ineptitude. I would have rather seen that $350b spent on hookers and crystal meth at the next Republican National Convention.

There are a few blatant demonstrations of ineptitude and downeight shadiness.

1- the Indian ex-Goldman Mini-me Paulson is the best person he could find the run the TARP program? Are you effing kidding me? The guy has ZERO accountability. Have you heard his comments during congressional hearings?

2- I find it suspect that Paulson started pushing for a TARP fund hardest when Goldman and Morgan Stanley were on the bring of collapse. I definitely think he would have done anything/everything to prevent Goldman from going down. I don't think they were financially in that position, but with the market betting against you, it doesn't matter what position you're in.

3- Its apparent that the distribution of TARP funds to healthy institutions did NOTHING to quell the "stigma" associated with needing Uncle Sam to bail you out nor did it do anything to thaw the credit markets.

While at Goldman, Paulson was one of the Wall Street execs pressuring the SEC to ease up on net capital requirements... which is one of the principal reasons banks were able to take on such huge amounts of risk and leverage themselves up the way they had.

Paulson was a key factor in creating this perfect storm. The fact that TARP was handed to him to "fix" the problem he essentially caused is ridiculous.

TARP has been a gigantic failure from day 1.

no idea how this man became the ceo of GS. he is an absolute clown

I agree Marcus that Paulson did not accomplish really any task set before him: the banks he attempted to recapitalize are still distressed, the credit markets frozen (kind of...) etc. BUT you have to agree that he had to work under the often obstinant and agressive hand of congress (I realize that is his job and the nature of the process) which politicized everything.

I think if he did not have to pretend to be strict and not giving out handouts (which is what is really needed) he would have simply bought up $700B of these assets at par allowed the banks to recover those losses and ended this thing before it started (what $1T in subprime, $3T in all questionable mortgages including alt a?)

The reason I berate congress aside from idiots like Marcy Kaptur is because the prevailing sentiment at the time this whole thing was climaxing (Sep, Oct, Nov) when talk of buying the assets was brought up people still argued to buy them at the discounted bid values which would have done nothing but effectively cemented the terrible situation

really, moratorium on FASB 157 and the world stops melting

Spintap, Congress would shit all over Paulson if they could. He did absolutely none of what he had promised in order to get a $700B check. All those old fucks kept crying about is how he mislead them and now that he has the money he's doing what he wants with it. In reality, he didn't really know what the hell to do with it. His strategy and methodology was so haphazard and disjointly. Every day they had a new plan.

I wonder why not more of a stink was made of the fact that Paulson started crying the alarms of global financial meltdown only when the shit was about to reach Goldman's doorsteps? Goldman had $20 Billion of toxic AIG debt on its books and would have gone down if not for Paulson showering them with money. Way too many Goldman alums were in Treasury doling out money to their cronies.

Kashkari was just a puppet for Paulson. BTW, not a bad guy. I went to high school with him at Western Reserve Academy and remember him as someone of above average intelligence who was hard working. Speaking of which, what business does Geitner have running Tresury? The guy (proudly!) admitted he's never taken an econ class before! I'd rather have my b-school macro professor in there than him!

That is totally false. The credit markets have thawed to the point where they are working again. The major banks have been saved. TARP was by no means a failure.