TARP Repayments Surpass Loans. Bailout loans now fully repaid

[impik]

WASHINGTON—The Treasury Department on Friday said the money repaid to taxpayers for government funds used to bail out U.S. companies has for the first time surpassed the amount of loans.

The Treasury, in its May report to Congress on the Troubled Asset Relief Program, said TARP repayments reached $194 billion, $4 billion more than the outstanding debt of $190 billion.

In a statement, the Treasury's assistant secretary for financial stability, Herb Allison, described this as a milestone and said it is "further evidence that TARP is achieving its intended objectives: stabilizing our financial system and laying the groundwork for economic recovery."

The benchmark was reached in May when the Treasury completed its sale of 1.5 billion shares of Citigroup Inc., "a transaction that provided gross proceeds of $6.18 billion to taxpayers," the Treasury said.



http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703509404575300502253092016.html

[scheming daemons]

1. Stop it with the good news already! The cognitive dissonance is killing the "let it fail" brigade!

Have some mercy on them.

[KingFlorez]

2. Oh noes, this is terrible

Whatever will we do with this positive news? Let's all collapse in a heap and act like the sky is falling.

[nichomachus]

3. So, George Bush was a success?

[bvar22]

4. LOL.

You seem to have stopped this thread dead in it's tracks.

[phleshdef]

6. Signing the bailout into law was the only smart thing W ever did.

And apparently, according to him, its the only thing he regrets.

[Hansel]

7. Not quite. I believe it was when Obama attached the strings

that the banks started paying the money back. So I would have to give the success to Obama.

George wrote a blank check. Obama filled in the blank.

[Heywood J]

5. Citigroup shares are worth

about $4 now? Wow, they've fallen right into the toilet. Some sound financial management on their part, I guess.

[PBS Poll-435]

8. They were on the McDonalds "Dollar Menu" last March

But nearly every top 6 bank is worth about 3-4 times what they were in March 2009.