Posted by Sir Four at 4:32pm Dec 7 '09W YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke said Monday he's confident the Federal Reserve will make money on the trillions it has pumped into the economy since the start of 2008.
"I think we're in very good shape," Bernanke said, answering questions following a speech at the Economic Club of Washington. "I do believe we're going to get back all the money, and indeed we'll be showing for the taxpayers fairly significant extra income."
The TARP fund, however, has lost money. But Obama is set to announce that it lost $200 billion less than what was thought just last summer, meaning it ultimately cost $141 billion (caveat: these are still estimated numbers).
In other news, AIG announced plans to pay off its debt to the government. Observers think it's likely they want to pay it off quickly so they will no longer have to limit executive compensation, which the government demands of its debtors.
My commentary: it's still too soon to say for sure how well or poorly the government (and hence the taxpayer) fared, but a few things are clear:
1) limits on executive compensation were good--they create a strong incentive for debtors to repay their debts (quickly)
2) the propaganda pieces that simply added up all the government lending and bailouts to produce a Big Scary Number and insinuated that the money was disappearing in a puff of smoke, rather than due to be repaid were a load of crap
3) doomsday is (probably) averted
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