$375 million… Here we go again. U.S. taxpayers on the hook for another round of ‘coordinated’ bailouts for Greece.

The International Monetary Fund and Greece’s euro zone partners last week approved a second 130 billion euro ($172.15 billion) rescue to keep the debt-choked country afloat through 2014.”   (Reuters March 20, 2012).

“We received 5.9 billion euros from the euro zone and 1.6 billion euros from the IMF,” a finance ministry official told Reuters.

Note 1:  This equates to $2.12 billion (U.S. Dollars) ‘contribution’ from the IMF. The U.S. funds 17.7% of the IMF budget, so the U.S. Government has just ‘given away’ another $375 million to Greece/Europe.

Note 2: The total funding package for Greece, through 2014, is listed above as $172.15 billion. This means that the U.S. Government will be giving away’ significant additional amounts to “keep the debt-choked country [Greece] afloat through 2014.”  

The U.S. economy is currently on a ‘dead crawl’ pace.  Instead of giving our (future) tax dollars away to foreign interests, the U.S. government should be moving to provide direct credit extensions to American families.

America needs the Leviticus 25 Plan.

Were the TARP Bailout paybacks legitimate – or did U.S. taxpayers get ‘soaked’…?

Treasury officials like to claim that all of the funds ($245 billion) dispersed under the Capital Purchase Program (CPP) have been repaid with interest – and that U.S. taxpayers have actually reaped a profit of $10 billion.

There is more to this story.  When the Fed highlights their TARP profits, they are only counting the positive payers.  They are not accounting for the those parties who have not repaid their TARP bailout frunds.  And they are allegedly not accounting for the market value of some of the ‘crap’ Mortgage Backed Securities (and other) assets on their books  – which they purchased with trillions of dollars.

Furthermore, according to the calculations of one group called Ethisphere, the TARP payback shortfall stands at a tall $148 billion.  This averages out to a debt of over $1200 for every American.  (Source:  Taibblog 9-1-09)

Capital Purchase Program (CPP) is a leg of the TARP bailout, whereby “Treasury bought preferred shares in the nation’s banks” to rescue many of the banks from failure.

Here are some of the big ones:

Date

Financial Institution

City

State

Amount

10/28/2008 Wells Fargo & Co. San Francisco Calif. $25,000,000,000
10/28/2008 State Street Corp. Boston Mass. $2,000,000,000
10/28/2008 Bank of America Corp.1 Charlotte N.C. $15,000,000,000
10/28/2008 JPMorgan Chase & Co. New York N.Y. $25,000,000,000
10/28/2008 Citigroup Inc. New York N.Y. $25,000,000,000
10/28/2008 Morgan Stanley New York N.Y. $10,000,000,000
10/28/2008 Goldman Sachs Group Inc. New York N.Y. $10,000,000,000
10/28/2008 Bank of New York Mellon Corp. New York N.Y. $3,000,000,000

And here is the full list of the Bank recipients:   http://money.cnn.com/news/specials/storysupplement/bankbailout/

Remember that many of the ‘big players’ like Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and others received sizeable credit extensions from the Federal Reserve at (near) zero percent interest, and were able to use those funds to purchase Treasury securities paying 3% interest – thereby gaining access to ‘free money’ to rebuild their solvency.  And pay back TARP disbursements to the Fed.

So, yes, many of the major players did repay the TARP disbursements – but they did it with the benefit of the ‘free money’ they had access to from other programs.  And that ‘free money’ giveaway by the Fed – does dilute the value of the U.S. Dollar.

And that ‘hits’ American families with higher prices for such things as food and energy.

Furthermore, some of the smaller banks actually paid back TARP bailout funds with other funds borrowed from the Small Business Lending Fund.  These included (July 14, 2011):

  • Eagle Bancorp of Bethesda, MD: $23.235 million
  • First California Financial, Westlake Village, CA: $25 million
  • Cache Valley Bank, Logan, UT: $4.77 million, plus $263,000 to buy back preferred shares granted to Treasury in lieu of warrants
  • Security Business Bancorp, San Diego, CA: $5.8 million, plus $290,000 to buy back preferred shares granted to Treasury in lieu of warrants
  • BOH Holdings of Houston, Houston, TX: $10 million, plus $500,000 to buy back preferred shares granted to Treasury in lieu of warrants
  • BancIndependent, Sheffield, AL: $21.1 million, plus $1.055 million to buy back preferred shares granted to Treasury in lieu of warrants
  • York Traditions Bank, York, PA: $4.871 million, plus $244,000 to buy back preferred shares granted to Treasury in lieu of warrants
  • Centric Financial, Harrisburg, PA: $6.056 million, plus $182

The shell games being played by our government on behalf of the banks is a disservice to U.S. citizens.

The Leviticus 25 Plan recapture provisions, on the other hand, provide an honest, straightforward mechanism for recapturing the funds extended, while providing direct benefits to American families..