Treasury overpaid $78 bn for toxic assets

[slipslidingaway]

http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2009/02/treasury_overpaid_78_bn_for_to.html

"...Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard University law professor Congress chose to chair the committee that's overseeing the Treasury Department's implementation of the TARP program, said financial experts her panel consulted say the government paid $78 billion too much for the toxic assets it purchased from financial institutions.

Her comments came during yet another congressional hearing on the TARP. This morning's hearing is before the Senate Banking Committee.

Warren said:

"At the time of the first set of transactions, Treasury substantially overpaid. According to the data we've investigated, Treasury put in about $254 billion for which it received about $176 billion in value from the financial instituions. That's a shortfall of about $78 billion when measured as of the date of the transactions, not in terms of what happened to the markets since then . We want to emphasize there may be good policy reasons for overpaying. But without a clearly delineated reason, we can't know that. We return to a theme that we have spoken about repeatedly, and that is the need for clear goals, for a clear framework, for methods for how we're getting there and measurements to see if that is happening."

Sen. Chris Dodd, chairman of Senate panel, rightly called this information "eyebrow raising"

[whistle]

1. No wonder the CEO's gave themselves bonuses, fucking corruption in Paulson's Treasury Department

...BIG TIME! They paid 44.3% too much

[slipslidingaway]

3. Yes ....

haste makes waste

a fool and their money...

:(

[LiberalFighter]

2. Paulson did a great job as Secretary.

[slipslidingaway]

5. "Paulson did a great job as Secretary".....of transferring wealth

from one set of people to another.

[The Straight Story]

4. About the same amount schip taxes will raise

Hmmmmm :)

[slipslidingaway]

7. Not seeing the, connection care to elaborate. n/t

[The Straight Story]

9. We wouldn't need to raise taxes if we managed our money better (nt)

[slipslidingaway]

10. Thanks, sometimes it is just that simple :))) n/t

[gratuitous]

6. I hope we kept the receipt

We'll be getting a refund, right?

[slipslidingaway]

8. Right!!! :( n/t

[slipslidingaway]

11. kick - 78 billion n/t