http://www.cnbc.com/id/27719011

Bonus points:

Quote:Administrators grappling with the European arm of the failed investment bank Lehman Brothers have told creditors their task is “10 times as big and as complicated” as the unwinding of Enron.

Speaking after the first creditors’ meeting, a team from PricewaterhouseCoopers said they had identified more than $1 trillion in assets and liabilities that need to be accounted for.

At the meeting, held behind closed doors in a conference hall at the O2 dome in London, the lead administrator, Tony Lomas, told hundreds of representatives and lawyers that he had recovered about $5 billion out of a potential $550 billion of obligations owing to creditors. A further $22.3 billion of client assets had been identified, all of which will be returned to their owners…

The settlement of Lehman credit insurance contracts linked to the bank’s bonds suggested debt holders could expect to recover less than nine cents in the dollar.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/...us-economy

Not one response?

Did anyone here actually believe it would work? Or that it would stay at $700B?

I say you treat the banks like they are trying to treat the auto industry. Don't give them sh!t!!!

What good is dumping all that money into industries that sell when no one is buying? We need more confidence in the system and I have no confidence in bailouts.

georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:Not one response?

I actually posted the same article in the "insane cost of the bailout" thread. That said, we're boned as a country. I agree with Austrian economics and have been listening to Ron Paul & Peter Schiff. We're going to experience hyper-inflation during the coming depression. Our money will be worthless by the end of Obama's term. That's why I'm investing in silver bars. It's not Obama's fault. The titanic has been sinking for the last 50 years. Obama is just taking the helm as it's going down. He and Bernanke are probably the worst two people we could have in though. They'll just spend and print more money. We need "shock therapy" which is slashing gov't spending and collecting almost zero taxes. Bernanke is an idiot and he's know as "helicopter ben" that's why we're so screwed. He thinks that his duty is to keep pumping money into the economy until it fixes, but that's only going to cause hyper-inflation.

I don't understand what this TARP is.

firmbizzle Wrote:I don't understand what this TARP is.

It's an acronym for the Treasury Program Bailout, the $700 Billion one. It stands for Troubled Assets Relief Program, i.e. we buy our friends bad decisions and unload them on the taxpayer who has to bend over and take it.

uhmump95 Wrote:I say you treat the banks like they are trying to treat the auto industry. Don't give them sh!t!!!

ditto!

Jugnaut Wrote:

firmbizzle Wrote:I don't understand what this TARP is.

It's an acronym for the Treasury Program Bailout, the $700 Billion one. It stands for Troubled Assets Relief Program, i.e. we buy our friends bad decisions and unload them on the taxpayer who has to bend over and take it.

I think that there are a lot of educated people that know what the acronym is but still don't know what TARP is. That probably includes about 60+% of Congress (except possibly for the "well educated" part).

I45owl Wrote:

Jugnaut Wrote:

firmbizzle Wrote:I don't understand what this TARP is.

It's an acronym for the Treasury Program Bailout, the $700 Billion one. It stands for Troubled Assets Relief Program, i.e. we buy our friends bad decisions and unload them on the taxpayer who has to bend over and take it.

I think that there are a lot of educated people that know what the acronym is but still don't know what TARP is. That probably includes about 60+% of Congress (except possibly for the "well educated" part).

Well, here's an explanation then: It is a program that allows Paulson to spend $350 billion on whatever the hell he wants without any oversight. If Congress approves the other $350 billion then he gets a round two.