Running Afoul of Obama's Adding Machine (White House rankled by TARP criticism)

THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION HARPS on the need to make Wall Street accountable through better oversight and more transparent reporting. Yet the White House blew its stack last week when an independent review asserted that its $700 billion bailout of Wall Street lacked adequate oversight and transparency!

Sigh. In D.C., hypocrisy is the most important product. And nastiness ranks a close second. The White House administered a knee-capping in response to the quarterly report to Congress by the Office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, fondly known as Sigtarp.

The Sig in Sigtarp is Neil M. Barofsky, a former federal prosecutor whom the New York Daily News once described as a "buster of drug lords and scourge of white-collar crooks." In 2008, Barofsky successfully prosecuted the executives of Refco for the accounting fraud that caused the large commodities brokerage firm to go bust three months after its initial public offering in August 2005. He also led an investigation that resulted in the indictment of 50 alleged drug traffickers from Colombia.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH appointed the lifelong Democrat to the newly created inspector general's post in 2008. Barofsky's mission: "To advance economic stability by promoting the efficiency and effectiveness of TARP management, through transparency, through coordinated oversight and through robust enforcement against those, whether inside or outside of government, who waste, steal or abuse TARP funds." And until last week, the dogged Sig was considered to be one of the good guys.

"He has the capacity and intellect to dig into things, and to exercise independent judgments. Which is really lacking [in the federal government] in general,"Rep. Alan Grayson, a Florida Democrat, told Mother Jones magazinein 2009.

Here's how Obama "Stimulated" the Economy......by run-away spending

The US Treasury entry must be seen in this context. COS Rahm Emanuel took control of the US Treasury when he crept into our WH.

Behind The Real Size of the Wall Street Bailout (more like $14 trillion)
Mother Jones | Dec. 21, 2009 / FR Posted January 04, 2010 by E. Pluribus Unum

A guide to the abbreviations, acronyms, and obscure programs that make up the $14 trillion federal bailout of Wall Street.

The price tag for the Wall Street bailout is often put at $700 billion—the size of the Troubled Assets Relief Program. But TARP is just the best known program in an array of more than 30 overseen by Treasury Department and Federal Reserve that have paid out or put aside money to bail out financial firms and inject money into the markets. To get a sense of the size of the real $14 trillion bailout, see our chart here. Below, a guide to the pieces of the puzzle:

Treasury Department bailout programs (controlled by Rahm Emanuel)

Money Market Mutual Fund: In September 2008, the Treasury announced that it would insure the holdings of publicly offered money market mutual funds. According to the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP), these guarantees could have potentially cost the federal government more than $3 trillion [PDF].

Public-Private Investment Fund: This joint Treasury-Federal Reserve program bought toxic assets from banks and brokerages—as much as $5 billion of assets per firm. According to SIGTARP, the government's potential exposure from the PPIF is between $500 million and $1 trillion [PDF].

TARP: As part of the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the Treasury has made loans to or investments more than 750 banks and financial institutions. $650 billion has been paid out (not including HAMP; see below). As of December 21, 2009, $117.5 billion of that has been repaid. Government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) stock purchase: The Treasury has bought $200 million in preferred stock from Fannie Mae and another $200 million from Freddie Mac [PDF] to show that they "will remain viable entities critical to the functioning of the housing and mortgage markets." GSE mortgage-backed securities purchase: Under the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008, the Treasury may buy mortgage-backed securities from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. According to SIGTARP, these purchases could cost as much as $314 billion [PDF].

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Federal Reserve bailout programs

Commercial Paper Funding Facility: With the support from the Treasury, the Fed established the CPFF in October 2008 to increase the availability of short-term debt (commercial paper) funding. Up to $1.8 trillion [PDF] was earmarked for the program.

Mortgage-backed securities purchase: In 2009, the Fed earmarked up to $1.25 trillion to buy investments based on home loans.

Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility: TALF provides financing to investors who are buying asset-backed securities. In February 2009, the Fed and Treasury announced an expansion of the program to generate up to $1 trillion in new lending.

Foreign Central Bank Currency Liquidity Swaps: The Fed has provided $755 billion [PDF] for currency liquidity swaps with foreign central banks.

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