Timothy Geithner

In today's news: Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner defends the government's actions to save the economy.  There is still $135 billion of TARP funds to be distributed and he does not rule out asking congress for more.

From TARP to BARF

Newly inducted Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has the very tough job of revamping the Trouble Asset Relief Program (TARP).   Geithner and Obama announced plans to limit executive pay to $500,000/year to companies receiving "exceptional assistance"- hooray for that, but I wish I knew what "exceptional assistance" actually entailed.  

The article also mentions the Bad Asset Repository Fund, lovingly called BARF by critics, essentially a separate bank to divert bad assets from bank balance sheets.  Fascinating.  

TARP Funds Revisited

Here is an interesting article about where how and where TARP funds are being allocated.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/01/24/BUMI15FFNL.DTL

Circuit City Revisited

#2 electronics retailer, Circuit City, has filed for bankruptcy and is asking for court approval to close its 567 stores.  If approved, doors will close by March 31 and its 34,000 employees will receive 60 days notice, pay, and benefits.  

I embroidered a Circuit City hanky on November 11, 2008, when it secured a credit line of $1.1 billion with Bank of America, closed 155 stores, and laid off 8,600 employees.  

Bank of America is not without its own woes.  The banking giant just received another $20 billion in bailout funds from TARP.  I have to admit, my anti-number crunching mind can't comprehend how the shifting of funds is working to offset the losses. In any case, bailout funds were granted to absorb the deficit (which, apparently, was much, much higher than forecasted) accrued by the buyout of Merrill Lynch.  

By golly, all this time I thought money grew on trees.