There's a bit of a chicken and egg problem here. Those excellent returns were extremely unlikely to happen had there been no TARP. Much like leveraged buyouts

There's a bit of a chicken and egg problem here. Those excellent returns were extremely unlikely to happen had there been no TARP. Much like leveraged buyouts often end up in bankruptcy due to extensive debt, excessively onerous terms on TARP would have blunted its effectiveness at restarting the economy.