Am I the only one that was fine with TARP?

[weso1]

I hear both sides of the political aisle keep talking about how horrible it was, but is there evidence that it didn't work? We avoided a depression. I just don't think there is any evidence that it would have been a smarter decision to just let the banks fail. Maybe that will change later in time, but as of now what is the evidence that it didn't keep us from a depression?

Obviously, we want to put ourselves in a position so that we never have to do something like that again, but it doesn't mean it wasn't the right play at the time.

[The Chosen One]

TARP was like a bandaid.

It stopped the hemorrhaging, but I'm inclined to believe that if they completely failed the recession would have lasted much longer with worse consequences.

A necessary evil. I hope we can form regulations again so we never have to deal with it.

[Oklahomahawk]

TARP was like a bandaid.

It stopped the hemorrhaging, but I'm inclined to believe that if they completely failed the recession would have lasted much longer with worse consequences.

A necessary evil. I hope we can form regulations again so we never have to deal with it.

I meant to respond to this the other day but my 15 second attention span betrayed me again. I agree with you guys that at the time it was a necessary evil, and at the time I was OK with it but I thin Don hits on THE most important point of it, regulation. We need good, reasonable, regulations, not stupid ones but regulations that keep this sort of thing from happening. When the Repubs go on and on about the evils of regulation this is what WILL inevitably happen and Rafael Cruz' speech last night was full of this stuff. Blast regulations, blast the EPA, blast anything that tries to get into the way of unbridled greed that only cares about raking in more and more billions and doesn't care in the least about the consequences for the rest of us.

[50PoundHead]

I hear both sides of the political aisle keep talking about how horrible it was, but is there evidence that it didn't work? We avoided a depression. I just don't think there is any evidence that it would have been a smarter decision to just let the banks fail. Maybe that will change later in time, but as of now what is the evidence that it didn't keep us from a depression?

Obviously, we want to put ourselves in a position so that we never have to do something like that again, but it doesn't mean it wasn't the right play at the time.

Like most massive initiatives, it had some warts, but something had to be done. I think some folks should have gone to jail and I never liked Obama's choice of Geithner for Secretary of the Treasury. But lost in all the rhetoric is that without some type of bailout, the economy would have likely taken a steeper downturn. Now, one can't prove the negative, so there's no way for me to back up that statement, but I have to believe credit would have become largely non-existent for an extended period, pushing asset values even lower. In a pure economic sense, it can be argued that assets that are overvalued should come back down to Earth.

[sturg33]

You're certainly not the only one who was fine with it... but I'm not one of those folks.

[weso1]

You're certainly not the only one who was fine with it... but I'm not one of those folks.

Why? What's your evidence to back your stance?

[sturg33]

Why? What's your evidence to back your stance?

What evidence? My stance as we shouldn't have tax payer money bail out banks. Yes, there would have been economic catastrophe (probably), but we could have completed liquidated bad assets and started clean with a sustainable rebuild. Instead, we bail them out, pass bad legislation, and kick the can down the road.