Harp on TARP

I touched on this in my previous post but what the heck did happen to TARP? You know, the $700 billion “Troubled Assets Relief Program”? It was supposed to buy up all the toxic mortgage-based securities that were bringing the financial system to its knees. So far as I know, it has yet to purchase its first toxic asset and now - son of a gun - Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is asking for $1 trillion (yes, with a “t”) to - surprise - clear the toxic assets from the financial system. Five months later, still no word on how the heck the toxic assets will be priced:

I’m very much afraid that the analysis at Naked Capitalist which insists that there are bottom-feeders currently willing to buy; that the asset holders refuse to sell for what the bottom-feeders are offering; and that the government will offer whatever the sellers demand in order to get their hands on those assets looks like what will happen.

I guess the nice thing about the government recycling proposals and problems is that I can just keep recycling posts.