Get-Tarp Hero: Take This TARP and Shove It

Give it Back

More banks giving the money back.  Fabulous.  I dont care that their reasons are selfish, the point is that there are winners and losers again and someone out there still has some fight left in them.

From the New York Times:
Financial institutions that are getting government bailout funds have been told to put off evictions and modify mortgages for distressed homeowners. They must let shareholders vote on executive pay packages. They must slash dividends, cancel employee training and morale-building exercises, and withdraw job offers to foreign citizens.

Basically, if you take the TARP money, you are de facto signing up for the Obama team’s social engineering project, where we are forgiving loans, forcing new loans and socializing potential profits.  Many community banks took the TARP cash because they thought they were being patriotic.  Now, banks like Signature in New York, TCF in Minnesota and Iberiabank in Louisiana, which I lauded earlier this week are saying thanks, but no thanks.

The demands to modify mortgages or forestall evictions are especially onerous, some bank executives and experts say, because they could prompt some institutions to take steps that could lead to greater losses.

In other words, the business side of the program was meant to prevent systemic collapse, but the rainbow and unicorn side of the program is meant to make public company banks into municipal libraries or community rec centers, complete with government-mandated risky lending.

Give it back if you can, guys, I don’t blame you.  Let the crippled monstrosities who have no choice run their business like a charity.

Full Story: Strings Attached (NYT)

Read Also: Get-TARP Hero: Iberiabank