Geithner Screws Taxpayers, WSJ Throws TARP Under The Bus

This is an interesting post at Ace of Spades:

How about 100 cents on the dollar? That seems fair, eh?

It's just taxpayer money. Taxpayers are just lousy with taxpayer money.

Geithner’s team circulated a draft term sheet outlining how the New York Fed wanted to deal with the swaps -- insurance-like contracts that backed soured collateralized-debt obligations. 

CDOs are bundles of debt including subprime mortgages and corporate loans sold to investors by banks.

Part of a sentence in the document was crossed out. It contained a blank space that was intended to show the amount of the haircut the banks would take, according to people who saw the term sheet. After less than a week of private negotiations with the banks, the New York Fed instructed AIG to pay them par, or 100 cents on the dollar. The content of its deliberations has never been made public.

The New York Fed’s decision to pay the banks in full cost AIG -- and thus American taxpayers -- at least $13 billion. That’s 40 percent of the $32.5 billion AIG paid to retire the swaps. Under the agreement, the government and its taxpayers became owners of the dubious CDOs, whose face value was $62 billion and for which AIG paid the market price of $29.6 billion. The CDOs were shunted into a Fed-run entity called Maiden Lane III.

It should be noted that Geithner, um, "negotiated" these very tough terms on behalf of the American taxpayer while head of the New York Fed, not as Treasury Secretary.

So this counts as a Blame Bush.

No wonder Wall Street had such a schoolgirl crush on him. If he gave you $13 billion, you'd be pretty sweet on him too.

The Wall Street Journal meanwhile retracts any further (and past) support of TARP:

We supported TARP to deal with toxic bank assets and resolve failing banks as a resolution agency of the kind that worked with savings and loans in the 1980s. Some taxpayer money was needed beyond what the FDIC's shrinking insurance fund had available. But TARP quickly became a Treasury tool to save failing institutions without imposing discipline (Citigroup) and even to force public capital onto banks that didn't need it. This stigmatized all banks as taxpayer supplicants and is now evolving into an excuse for the Federal Reserve to micromanage compensation. 

TARP was then redirected well beyond the financial system into $80 billion in "investments" for auto companies. These may never be repaid but served as a lever to abuse creditors and favor auto unions. TARP also bought preferred stock in struggling insurers Lincoln and Hartford, though insurance companies are not subject to bank runs and pose no "systemic risk." They erode slowly as customers stop renewing policies.

TARP also became another fund for Congress to pay off the already heavily subsidized housing industry by financing home mortgage modifications. Not one cent of the $50 billion in TARP funds earmarked to modify home mortgages will be returned to the Treasury, says the Congressional Budget Office.

As of the end of September, Mr. Geithner was sitting on $317 billion of uncommitted TARP funds, thanks in part to bank repayments. But this sum isn't the limit of his check-writing ability. Treasury considers TARP a "revolving fund." If taxpayers are ever paid back by AIG, GM, Chrysler, Citigroup and the rest, Treasury believes it has the authority to spend that returned money on new adventures in housing or other parts of the economy.

A TARP renewal by Mr. Geithner could thus put at risk the entire $700 billion. Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R., Texas) and former SEC Commissioner Paul Atkins sit on TARP's Congressional Oversight Panel. They warn that the entire taxpayer pot could be converted into subsidies. They are especially concerned about expanding the foreclosure prevention programs that have been failing by every measure.

It's not very often that the WSJ gets something this wrong - they apparently made the mistake of believing the federal government.  I'm not a bit surprised to see them pull back from their previous endorsement.

The only other thing I would add is to just point out that Geithner didn't give a damn about American taxpayers before he became Treasury Secretary, so it's really not surprising that he doesn't give a damn about American taxpayers now.  And, none of these people are above the kind of corrupt back-scratching that makes normal, hard working Americans livid at Washington.  And yet, this is the kind of character that runs rampant throughout the Obama administration.

I can't wait until the 2010 vote.

There's my two cents.