(10-01-2010 09:23 PM)ausowl Wrote:  “It was probably the only effective method available to us to keep from having a financial meltdown much worse than we actually had. Had that happened, unemployment would be substantially higher than it is now, the deficit would have gone up even more than it has,” Mr. Elliott added. “But it really cuts against the grain for a public that is so angry at banks to think that something that so plainly helped the banks could also be good for the public.”

Sorry, I'm not buying.

Banks stopped lending money. We were told that we were going to have a financial meltdown unless we enacted TARP. Congress passed TARP. The funds were then used in a way that was 180 degrees out from what was proposed at the time TARP was enacted. No financial meltdown occurred. The banks have repaid a good hunk of the TARP funds. And they still aren't lending.

If something there is factually wrong, please advise. Otherwise, you have to connect the dots a lot better than that to convince me. Particularly when the people doing all this boasting about how well TARP worked are the same ones who should have seen the crisis coming but didn't.