Recidivism
The taxpayers picked up the trillion dollar tab for TARP to bail banks out of their bad investments. With the Geithner plan we are on the hook for more of the same with BARF in an attempt to get market pricing on these assets. Now, as the Pensacola Beach Blogger and several others have noted, the Bank of America and Citigroup are using TARP money, that they were supposed to be loaning out, to cover the cost buying BARF targets.
As I’m sure Rook could tell you, drying out a drunk is a waste of time unless the drunk recognizes that they have problem and wants to do something about it. It is obvious that the management of BofA and Citi have no intention of changing. If they are truly “too big to fail”, there is no choice but to nationalize them. Frankly, I personally believe that this is beyond the limits of bad decisions into the realm of the criminal. This looks like an attempt to defraud the taxpayers.
Maybe if the top three layers of management at these banks spend some time in the criminal justice system, others in the industry will figure out that people have had enough of this behavior.
I couldn’t care less how Wall Street reacts. If Wall Street wanted to dictate behavior, they should have come up with the money for the bailouts.
