KeithHennessey.com

Tuesday I began with a simple example, which I am calling Large Bank.
Yesterday we looked at TARP I, in which the government would buy troubled/toxic assets from banks.
Today I will describe TARP II, the plan we (the Bush Administration) implemented, in which the government made direct equity investments in banks to help fill their capital [...]

Despite Secretary Geithner’s statement to the contrary, I still think the Administration is running out of room within the $700 B Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP).  In my last four posts on TARP funding (1 2 3 4), I have stuck to what I think I can demonstrate analytically.  I am now going to shift [...]

Last Friday I raised the question of how much funding is left in the TARP.  This is now a broader discussion involving Secretary Geithner and the Treasury staff, the General Accounting Office, the Wall Street Journal and ABC News.  I’d like to review the progression of this topic over the past six days and see [...]

The President has arrived in London for the G-20 economic summit.  I have different policy views than the President on some of these issues, but I will not criticize him while he is overseas.  I will attempt to gently highlight a couple of substantive issues that concern me, but at the same time I want [...]

You’re probably here this morning either because of a link from Instapundit, or from Bill McGurn’s excellent Main Street column in today’s Wall Street Journal, or because of Yuval Levin’s kind reference on The Corner, or from Greg Mankiw over the weekend.  However you may have found me, welcome!
As background, I served as a White [...]

Last Friday I posted that I thought the Administration had less than $40 B of room remaining in the TARP.  The Wall Street Journal reported today Monday that Treasury says “it has about $134.5 billion left in its financial-rescue fund.”  Secretary Geithner addressed this question Sunday on This Week with George Stephanopolous.
GEITHNER: George, we [...]

In part one of this series, I explained why I think the Obama Administration will soon run out of TARP money and need to ask Congress for more.
Several weeks ago the Obama team began to lay the groundwork for such a request.  Here are four signs.
1.  In his February 24th Address to the Nation, the [...]

I think President Obama will soon need to ask Congress for more TARP funding, and that such a request will displace his legislative agenda for a while.  Let’s do the math.
When President Obama took office, $387 B of the $700 B of available TARP funds had already been publicly committed.  Here’s the breakdown.

Public commitment

Banks — [...]