Word: moneyitis
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...when the likes of Goldman Sachs or JPMorgan Chase, which were well capitalized and well run, say they didn't really need TARP money in the first place, that's more or less accurate. However, that doesn't mean that Goldman, JPMorgan and every other bank in the country weren't bailed out. Had the world economy melted down and more giant institutions failed, even strong firms like Goldman would have gone under. In July, Goldman acknowledged this, more or less, when it graciously - yes, graciously - paid a full price of $1.1 billion to redeem stock-purchase warrants it gave...
Main Street has paid a price for the ultra-low interest rates the Fed has kept in place to encourage banks to lend and to keep commerce flowing. Cheap money is nice for lenders and borrowers - but it's devastating for savers, especially for retirees who use interest income to supplement Social Security. If you had $500,000 stashed away - not a bad nest egg - you could earn a no-risk $20,000 to $25,000 annually (before taxes) two years ago buying bank CDs or short-term Treasury securities. Now you earn less than $5,000 in an average...
That's harshly arbitrary, as is the fact that UAW jobs have been saved, at least for now, thanks to $60 billion of government money flowing into GM and Chrysler. Meanwhile, other companies have been allowed to croak. I can see how on macroeconomic grounds, it makes sense. Letting GM and Chrysler go under would have devastated the industrial Midwest and deprived millions of retirees of their postemployment health care. (See pictures of the global financial crisis...
...fact, much of the money that taxpayers have pumped into the financial system has ended up at banks that are lending it back to the government by buying Treasury securities. Isn't that great? We make money available to the banks at 0%, they lend it to the government at a markup, and they make money off our tax dollars, whining every step...
People who grab every penny they can, using taxpayer money, aren't true capitalists. True capitalists are long-term greedy, to use Goldman's favorite slogan, trying to maximize their take over the long run. The short-term greedy aren't capitalists, they're pigs. And as they say on Wall Street, pigs get slaughtered...