TARP: Wall Street’s Heist
“The notion that without the $700bn bailout we would be reduced to bartering was a ruse by the banks to get taxpayers’ money.” Dean Baker says we were taken in by fat cats.
“Two years ago, the top honchos at the Fed, Treasury and the Wall Street banks were running around like Chicken Little warning that the world was about to end. This fear-mongering, together with a big assist from the elite media (thatis, NPR, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, etc), earned the banks their $700bn Troubled Asset Relief Programme (Tarp) blank cheque bailout. This money, along with even more valuable loans and loan guarantees from the Fed and FDIC, enabled them to survive the crisis they had created. As a result, the big banks are bigger and more profitable than ever.”
