Take the money and run

January 26th, 2009 by Jon Green

The past few weeks have been full of alarming revelations about the business practices and spending habits of beneficiaries of TARP (bailout) funds. For those who criticized the financial bailout for not doing enough to direct funds to homeowners facing foreclosure or to prevent financial institutions from simply padding their bottom lines, it’s hard not to say “we told you so.”

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Topping the list of egregious excess this week is John Thaine, former Merrill Lynch tycoon who landed at Bank of America after the government orchestrated takeover of Merrill. On his way out the collapsing door of Merrill Lynch, Thaine awarded a few billion dollars in bonuses to employees before the Bank of America deal took effect on January 1st. Remember, Bank of America got an additional $20 billion in bailout funds to help offset Merrill Lynch’s fourth quarter losses. What exactly where these employees getting bonuses for?

We’ve also all seen recent disclosures that earlier in the year Thaine spent $1.2 million remodeling his office, including $87,000 for an area rug and – I have to say this is really the hardest thing to stomach in this whole sad, outrageous episode – over $1,400 on a waste basket.

Of course, the underlying problem is not just executive greed. A much broader problem is that for all the talk of transparency and accountability, the TARP legislation that Congress passed is utterly lacking in either. It turns out that financial institutions can do whatever the heck they please with taxpayers’ money – and they don’t need to tell anyone about it either. According to a recent story in the New York Times: “A review of investor presentations and conference calls by executives of some two dozen banks around the country found that few cited lending as a priority. An overwhelming majority saw the bailout program as a no-strings-attached windfall that could be used to pay down debt, acquire other businesses or invest for the future.”

We have an opportunity to turn over a new leaf. With President Obama (and with Jim Himes on the financial services committee) we ought to make sure that any more TARP money that gets released is guided to exactly where it’s needed: helped distressed homeowners and working to prevent future foreclosures.

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