The Brian Sullivan Blog
  • June 9, 2009 09:14 AM EDT by Brian Sullivan

    What To Do With My $521 TARP Payback?

    The government just announced it is "allowing" 10 banks to repay $68 billion in TARP funds.   It was also noted that the banks involved have paid approximately $4.5 billion in dividends on the preferred shares to date.  This will no doubt be spun in Washington as "the taxpayer is being repaid" to the tune of $72.5 billion bucks and we should all be happy.

    In 2007 there were about 139 million tax returns filed.   Simple math tells us that the TARP repayment and dividend payments comes to about $521 bucks per tax return filed.

    Good news!

    Or not.

    What are the odds that the taxpayer - who fronted the TARP money through increased government borrowing - is gonna see one dime of that cash?    About the same as the Washington Nationals winning the World Series this year.

brian

It's not our money. It's china's money... We did not have the 800b to loan out..

June 9, 2009 at 10:02 am

Tom

You're kidding right? Like the middle class in this country will EVER see any of that money repaid or not. Now if only we could REALLY be a democracy, we may have a chance...a rose by any other name.....

June 9, 2009 at 10:07 am

chuck

Brian I was told an interesting story on how the price of retail gasoline is going up. A source of mind told me yesterday that the supplies are being limited I don't know if it's intentional or not,to ramp up the price of gas back to 3.00 levels. Now this doesn;t make sense in a recession does it? Now at the sametime here last week a Kangeroo here by accident not the gas price down by twenty-two cents. Now the cause of this was computer error. Yet a new gas station has open under Murphy Gas but the company Murphy Oil which is a supplier to Wal-Mart has denied it's thier station. Yet is it?

June 9, 2009 at 10:29 am

Ron

I would settle for them using it to prevent the Fed from having to buy another 62 bn in treasuries. The taxes that I won't have to pay on the interest on my $521 is like a divendend paying me back year after year.

June 9, 2009 at 10:45 am

Ed G

Banks to Repay = 68 bil Aig owes 138 bil Car company's owe 60 bil THIS IS A SMALL % OF TOTAL Where is the other 500 billion Tim Geithner wants more ,he needs to focus on how to repay tax payers the balance of the 500 bilion tarp still out there.

June 9, 2009 at 11:01 am

Nacho

Hmmm, how are those bank reserves doing lately? I'm guessing we could take back a lot more than $68 billion. And I don't want to see my $521 do a damn thing. This is money we shouldn't have spent at all.

June 9, 2009 at 11:41 am

Movers

Not only will the funds be returned to it's owners (the tax payers) Giethner has said he would like to return it to a fund that he controls for future needs. It's the same old story once they have $$$ and power they do not give it back with out a fight and when it looks like the money is no longer needed they will find some thing else to spend it on. Any one feel a meltdown or crisis comming?

June 9, 2009 at 12:49 pm

fan

While I do loathe Fox News and the leftovers FROM Fox News that birthed FBN ? I do like and respect you and Liz MacDonald Brian Sullivan ! AH yes, and Charles too ! the rest are just happy to have a job - YOU three I think are at the top of your game. Seem to be only about the truth - never slant - just data- facts, Liz side, and you seem to be about fairness to people - and corp side - would make a great Distract Attorney I bet Brian ! I bet the three of you could branch off and run your own show/network - and it WOULD Be good - it would beat anything out there I think. CNBC is okay - but they don't get too excited about things - or go off the beaten path - where I can ALWAYS expect some curbeball firestorm from Liz MacDonald - or you when you find something with merit.

June 9, 2009 at 2:54 pm

about this blog

  • Brian Sullivan joined FOX Business Network (FBN) in April 2008 as an anchor. He co-anchors the 10am-12pm ET hours of the FOX Business block. Prior to joining FBN, Sullivan served as an anchor for Bloomberg Television where he hosted the programs Morning Call and In Focus.

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