"TARP stabilized our country’s financial system when confidence in financial markets around the world was being tested unlike any other period in our history," the bank’s president and chief executive, John Stumpf, said in a statement. "Its success also generated financial returns for taxpayers, including $1.4 billion in dividends paid to the U.S. Treasury by Wells Fargo."
"Now we’re ready to fully repay TARP in a way that serves the interests of the U.S. taxpayer, as well as our customers, team members and investors," Mr. Stumpf said.
Wells Fargo is the third big bank this month to move to repay the government and leave TARP. Earlier Monday, Citigroup announced a broad program that will replace the $20 billion of remaining bailout aid with money from private investors, facilitate the sale of the government’s $25 billion in bank stock and allow it to wean itself off other forms of federal assistance.
And Bank of America has repaid $45 billion that it received in two government bailouts
http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/...
So the points are these:
1 "The independent panel that oversees the government’s financial bailout program concluded in a year-end review that, despite flaws and lingering problems, the program "can be credited with stopping an economic panic.""
http://www.nytimes.com/...
- The number for the "bailout", something like $2.1 Trillion dollars as stated by the talking head on MSNBC, is not spent money. Some of its coming back; some of it is in credit facilities and guarantees, and may never go out. It's not like $1.3Trillion out of pocket, like the Bush tax cut, or $12B a month, like Iraq. The actual out of pocket is going to be much less than the total of TARP and contingent liabilities that make up the "bailout".