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For sure. People still get up in arms about the 2008 bank bailout without realizing that it ended up resulting in a $121B profit to the government: https://proj

• spaced-out 7y ago
  I tried to click your Propublica link because I want to see their numbers, since the wiki article on TARP points out that the "profit" the government made comes out to a 0.6% annualized interest rate, so once you take inflation into account the government actually lost money. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_Asset_Relief_Program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_Asset_Relief_Program
  • rcar 7y ago
    The Propublica link includes both TARP and the government's investments in Fannie/Freddie, which provided heavy dividends and is where a large portion of the profits have come from. That aside, the common misperception of TARP is that the government gave away $400+B of taxpayer money, which is a very, very far cry from a small inflation-adjusted loss.
    • spaced-out 7y ago
      >the common misperception of TARP is that the government gave away $400+B of taxpayer money I don't think this is a common misconception, I think it's a strawman argument to deflect criticism of the bailouts. Regardless of whether or not the government made money, we created a massive moral hazard by allowing banks to engage in shady behavior, avoid any criminal prosecution, get below-rate loans to avoid the market consequences of their actions, and left the common people out in the cold. On top of that, we supposedly fixed the problem by expanding banks' reserve requirements, but when they got into trouble in the repo market, the FED runs to their rescue with even more below-market-rate loans, which seem to get larger and larger by the week.
• vkou 7y ago
  When taking inflation and the time value of money into account, it was a loss.