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In the form of loans. Far from a perfect program, but from Wikipedia: > On December 19, 2014, the U.S. Treasury sold its remaining holdings of Ally Financial,
by airstrike 2y ago
In the form of loans. Far from a perfect program, but from Wikipedia:
> On December 19, 2014, the U.S. Treasury sold its remaining holdings of Ally Financial, essentially ending the program. Through the Treasury, the US Government actually booked $15.3 billion in profit, as it earned $441.7 billion on the $426.4 billion invested.[2][3]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_Asset_Relief_Program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_Asset_Relief_Program
- digitalPhonix 2y agoSo they actually lost money compared to the treasury just not selling $426 billion in bonds. Very rough calculation on my phone without looking up specific yields and dates: 5-year cost to the treasury for selling $426 billion in bonds is ~$443 billion (4% yield)
- airstrike 2y agoEhh, if you're going to factor in opportunity cost then you must also account for the would-be impact to the overall economy had TARP not been enacted.
- digitalPhonix 2y agoThis isn’t opportunity costs, the government had to sell bonds to do all that because wasn’t sitting on cash. I’m just saying that I don’t think “it was a profitable program” is true. Factoring the overall benefits to the economy is obviously the right way to judge it and is (mostly) unrelated to its direct profitability.
- airstrike 2y agoI hear you but ISTM that "it was a profitable program" is more (partially) accurate than "the government just gave money away to big bad banks that should have gone into healthcare and education instead"