Panel Discloses $78 Billion Over-Payment by Government Under TARP

From Jonathan Turley

For those who believe that the stimulus legislation is a thinly veiled effort by both Democrats and Republicans to enrich friends and engorge budgets, they need only read the Congressional Oversight Panel report to confirm their suspicions. The panel has reported to the Senate Banking Committee this week that Treasury in 2008 paid $254 billion for assets worth only $176 billion. That is $78 billions that simply evaporated into the pockets of well-connected, well-heeled executives.

 

It is part of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), which may go down as the biggest rip-off of the American taxpayer in history. The windfall purchases were made by the Bush Administration in its waning days and specifically former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who has earned a lot of street creed on Wall Street.

This result was inevitable given the Administration’s insistence that it did not want to bargain down prices on acquiring assets since the priority was to get money to these companies and banks. That was a virtual invitation for exaggerating the true value of these assets. It is like buying a car but insisting that the dealer not negotiate on what the vehicle is worth but what the dealer needs in terms of value.

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Barbie Dream Church

Another Post on The Shack

Scot McKnight at http://blog.beliefnet.com/jesuscreed/ asked for responses to The Shack. Below is my response:

Hi, Scot. I read The Shack last February. My wife was away for a week visiting her parents, I was in bed three days with a cold I couldn’t shake, and I read The Shack in one reading. At the end I was sobbing, full of the love of God and love for God. The thing that came across to me the strongest was the truth that Francis Schaeffer so often spoke of – that the final reality behind all that we see is the personal God who loves. Matter looks hard, space is cold, and reality seems impersonal. But behind it all is the heart of God. In the book there is a powerful presentation of the love of God for Himself – a deep trinitarianism that goes so far beyond the orthodoxy that I learned in seminary. The book gives God texture and “touchability.” (Interestingly enough, this book gives credibility to John Piper’s constant theme of God’s love for Himself, though I am not so sure Piper’s primary audience would like The Shack). The unique contribution of Christianity to world religions in its trinitarisnism is manifest. Then there is the love of God for me. After reading the book I wanted to forgive everyone, love everyone in a way I had not before. There was a moment there when my soul was in contact with what I could only describe as pure love. The book is not soft on evil nor does it pass over the true horror of unrighteousness, as some have critiqued. It is not a “new agey” pantheism. It simply presents without delving into the intricacies of Christ’s substituionary sacrifice the triumph of love. Those who have been abused, betrayed and otherwise humiliated and shamed by others find that the only way out of the cage of a bitter spirit is love. And The Shack is a story that points the way.