Thursday, May 21, 2009

"Move Quickly" Means that the Taxpayer Getting Boned By the Banks

So, Timothy "Eddie Haskell" Geithner is saying that the Treasury will move quickly to sell the warrants it got for the TARP money.

The warrants, basically stock options, were there to ensure that taxpayers would share in the upside, as well as the downside, but now he's looking to "move quickly" to sell them.

The devil is in the details:
Big banks may value their warrants at an amount that is hundreds of millions of dollars below the prices that other models might generate, the Treasury official said. That range makes it hard for the government to find a price that protects taxpayer funds without penalizing the banks.

...

Geithner today reiterated that the government can sell the warrants back to the bank or to a third party.
Translation: How do we cut a sweetheart deal for the banks?

Because if the Treasury actually believes that the banks are truly solvent, and will survive, then the warrants are worth tens, if not hundreds, of billions more than what we the taxpayer will get for them.

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